The different types of document available on Europarl
Calendar and agendas of meetings All European Parliament meetings, with details of room, building and place of work and timetable, plus long-term calendar for certain bodies.
Committees, delegations, part-sessions: Agenda for next meeting (as soon as available - should a language version not be ready, another will be provided by default); agendas (other than part-session agendas) will remain available for approximately three months;
Part-sessions : Word search on full texts (from July 1999)
Draft reports and draft opinions of Parliament's committees Prior to the meetings of Parliament's committees, all documents on the agenda are published on Europarl. You can find them under the heading 'Meeting documents' for each committee.
Access to these documents is at present possible only by date of committee meeting (We are currently designing a search engine which will work in 20 languages and 2 alphabets. Meanwhile, certain search engines external to Parliament offer substantial results, especially in English).
Available: from about one week prior to the meeting, and at all events immediately before the meeting starts.
Draft reports and opinions on Europarl: since November 1999 (see "Previous meetings / Réunions précédentes").
Identification: PE 999.999 (PE, three digits, dot, three digits)
Reports adopted in committee and tabled for adoption in plenary After being adopted by the committee responsible and tabled with the sittings division, reports are debated in plenary. At this stage the text of the report also incorporates the opinion(s) of the committee(s) which were asked to deliver one.
Search by
list of new reports
rapporteur
committee responsible
report number
PE number
type of legislative procedure
keywords in title or text
These documents are available in most cases well before the part-session on whose agenda they appear. In some cases, however, they may only appear after the beginning of the part-session.
Reports on Europarl: since July 1994.
Identification: A6-9999/01 (A for 'report'; number for parliamentary term [A6 = 2004-2009; A5 = 1999-2004; A4 = 1994-1999]; hyphen; four-digit number; slash; two digits for year); plus PE number of report.
Part-session minutes A provisional version of the minutes is published prior to their approval in plenary, and is later replaced by the final version as published in the Official Journal, C series.
Access: via the part-session minutes of the date of the sitting
Votes and register on Europarl: since July 1999 (start of the 5th term)
Texts adopted in plenary Opinions of Parliament, legislative resolutions, resolutions, decisions on common positions and joint texts, own-initiative resolutions, budgetary resolutions, etc. Texts published in the provisional version as approved in plenary and subsequently published in the Official Journal, C series, in their final form.
Search by:
date of adoption in plenary
source referred to in report
keyword(s) in title
Available: from the day after sitting
Texts adopted on Europarl: all texts adopted since July 1994
Resolutions (Rule 113 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure) and resolutions on cases of breaches of human rights, democracy and the rule of law (Rule 115) Texts published in the provisional version of 'texts adopted' as approved in plenary, and subsequently published in the Official Journal, C series, in their final form.
Search by:
date of adoption in plenary
reference for motion for a resolution (B6-xxxx)
keyword(s) in title
Available: from the day after the sitting
Resolutions on Europarl: all resolutions since July 1994
Written declarations (Rule 116) Texts published in the provisional version of 'texts adopted' at the end of the part-session at which they are adopted, and subsequently published in the Official Journal, C series, in their final form.
Search by:
year of distribution
date announced in plenary
Available: from the day after the sitting
Written declarations on Europarl: since 1999
Verbatim report of proceedings and final text of debates The verbatim record of proceedings of Parliament's debates in plenary is available in the original language of the speakers and, after translation, in all the Union's working languages. The original-language texts are generally published the day after the debate. Provisional translations are published at the same location approximately four weeks later: these translations are subsequently replaced by the final version, which is also published in an Annex to the Official Journal.
Search by:
date of sitting
speaker
keywords(s) in heading of debate
Available: generally, the day after the sitting
Verbatim report on Europarl: all debates since April 1996 (Finnish and Swedish versions since January 1997) CD-ROM: As from the beginning of the fifth parliamentary term, the Annex to the Official Journal is published in CD-Rom form only. Several CD-Roms appear cumulatively during a given year. They may be obtained from the Publications Office or at its sales points. Each CD-Rom has a facility allowing users to search the complete text (also by author in the case of parliamentary questions).
Activities Presentation of the current work of Parliament and its bodies: appears monthly (except in August). A special edition is produced immediately after an EU summit, containing both the EP President's address to the European Council and the Presidency Conclusions.
Calendar of meetings Presentation of all meetings of Parliament and its bodies: appears weekly except in part-session weeks (when there is a daily display in Strasbourg).
questions for oral answer (Rule 108): available from July 1999
Question Time (Rule 109): available from July 1999; about 600 questions per year.
questions for written answer (Rule 110): available from July 1994 (with preliminary answers from 2000); about 4.500 questions per year.
Search by:
Member's name, political group, Member State of origin
question number, Official Journal number, institution to which the question is addressed
keyword(s) in title or text
Answers:
Questions for oral answer: these questions receive answers in plenary from the Commission and Council. These replies may be found in the verbatim report of proceedings or on the CD-ROM mentioned above.
Question time: as above.
Questions for written answer: these questions are accompanied by the replies of the institution addressed. As from March 2001, preliminary replies are published as soon as they are available.
Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament with Index The European Parliament's Rules of Procedure are published periodically in booklet form and in the L series of the Official Journal of the European Communities.
Documentsfrom previous parliamentary terms EP documents from previous parliamentary terms that are not on the Internet may be obtained from:
European Parliament Archive and Documentation Centre (CARDOC) DG Presidency L-2929 Luxembourg arch-info@europarl.europa.eu
The Legislative Observatory contains references for procedures and documents of all the institutions involved in the interinstitutional legislative procedure and for those relating to the work of the European Parliament (committees and part-sessions). You may search in OEIL using any of the following criteria:
keywords in title or subject area;
reference for a legislative act;
rapporteur, committee or political group;
procedure type; legal basis;
stage reached in procedure; event date (actual or forecast);
multiple criteria.
Period covered and contents:
all 'live' procedures and related documents, whatever the date of commencement or production;
all completed procedures, related documents and emergency resolutions since July 1994;
documents forwarded by the Commission to the EP for information (for one year).
OEIL is updated on a daily basis by the Directorate-General for the Presidency and the Directorates-General for Internal Policies and External Policies). It provides a summary in English and French of each of the events that go to make up a procedure.
The aim of these fact sheets is to offer non-specialists an overview, in as clear and concise a fashion as possible, of the process of European integration and the European Parliament's contribution to that process. They enable the reader to acquire a basic knowledge of the state of progress of every major aspect of European integration in a short space of time. Readers seeking more detailed information may consult specialist studies such as the research papers drawn up by Parliament's Directorate-General for Research (see also STOA - Scientific and Technological Options Assessment)