The European XFEL is a major X-ray Free Electron Laser facility located in Germany between the states of Hamburg and Scheleswig-Holstein. It is currently under commissioning and it aims at providing short pulses of radiation with unprecedented brightness covering the photon energy range between below the Carbon K-edge and about 25keV in SASE mode at the fundamental harmonic. It is driven by a superconducting linac working in burst, high-repetition mode, with a nominal energy up to 17.5 GeV, which feeds three separate undulator lines: SASE1 and SASE2, optimized for harder X-rays and SASE3, optimized for soft X-ray radiation. In this seminar I will first adress the present status of the European XFEL, mainly from the machine viewpoint, and I will then move to discuss the working principles and the status of the self-seeding setup, which will be installed at SASE2 and promises the production of nearly Fourier-limited pulses of radiation with increased brightness.