Organisation and operation

First and foremost, ELEC hinges on its national sections, which enjoy considerable autonomy in recruiting their members, assembling their financial resources and organising their own activities. It is mainly through national sections that members are attracted to ELEC and participate in its national and international activities. Citizens of countries where there is no national section of ELEC, as well as officials at international or European institutions, can become associate members.

The Central Council, which is ELEC's managing body, brings together twice a year the presidents of national sections in activity and individual members elected for their personal contribution to ELEC, under the leadership of the International President. It alone is empowered to adopt resolutions in ELEC's name and to circulate them by whatever means it chooses.

This is also the forum in which the programmes of ELEC's working commissions are debated and approved, and their work evaluated. Open to all ELEC members, there are currently six of these commissions covering various areas of economic activity and cooperation in Europe: Agriculture, Economic and Social, Infrastructures, Mediterranean, Monetary, and Neighbourhood. It is in the commissions that ELEC's essential research is carried out, as well as the drafting of position papers that give rise to various publications. They frequently call on external experts to present the issues which they examine. The Monetary and the Mediterranean commissions organize from time to time onferences, which are open to a larger public, including non-ELEC members.