The European Solar Telescope (EST) is a project to design, build and operate an European Solar 4-meter class telescope to be located in the Canary Islands, with the participation of institutions from fifteen European countries gathered around the consortium EAST (European Association for Solar Telescopes). The project main objective up to the present has been the development of the conceptual design study (DS) of a large aperture Solar Telescope. The study has demonstrated the scientific, technical and financial feasibility of EST. The DS has been possible thanks to the co-financing allocated specifically by the EU and the combined efforts of all the participant institutions. Different existing alternatives have been analysed for all telescope systems and subsystems, and decisions have been taken on the ones that are most compatible with the scientific goals and the technical strategies. The present status of some subsystems is reviewed in this paper.