From the very beginnings of development of the European Union, different theoretical approaches to conceptualize its political system began to develop as well. The European Union itself contains elements inherent to a country, a federation of countries and an international organization. However, it is not entirely possible to classify it as any of those terms. One of the theoretical concepts which aim to define the institutional organization of the European Union is also the idea of federalism as a concept of managing complex political systems. Despite the fact that the development of the federalistic idea has mostly been observed and studied since the American experience, the fact is that throughout the entire history of law and state there have been occurences of different forms of connecting and merging countries. Therefore, some elements of federations can also be found in earlier history, especially that of Europe. There are many goals, institutional structures and legal sources on which the European Union is based, and it is necessary to emphasize its complexity. The fact is that using the federational idea in the analysis of the European Union is completely justified, and that despite the fact that the European Union cannot be considered a true political system of the federal type, with strictly defined rights and authorities between allied governments and the central power, elements of federalism within it do exist, both on the political and the economical level.