Openness in the EU

Both the Council and the European Parliament record and broadcast their meetings and assemblies on the Internet. Also, there is live transmission from the press conference of the Commission at 12.00 pm each day.

The Council meetings are public when legislative acts are deliberated or voted upon. In addition, the Council's first negotiations on important non-legislative proposals are also public. The Council also regularly holds public debates on important issues affecting the interests of the Union and of its citizens. The public parts of Council meetings can be found at the Council's video service, featuring both live streaming and archived footage.

When the European Parliament assembles, it is transmitted live on the Internet. The European Parliament video service broadcasts live from both the plenary sessions, committee meetings and press conferences. Additionally, you can find footage from back to 2006 in the European Parliament multimedia library.

The European Commission also has a video service on the Internet. There you can follow the Commission's daily press briefing at 12.00 pm, where commissioners and spokespersons provide information on the latest Commission news and initiatives.

There is a wide variety of opportunities to follow a proposal put forward by the Commission for adoption by the Council and the European Parliament.

Pre-lex is a database on inter-institutional procedures. It allows you to follow the main steps in the decision-making and to download relevant documents.

OEIL is a database of the European Parliament. It brings together all relevant documents related to proposals under discussion in the European Parliament. It is possible to search for each initiative under discussion in the European Parliament and follow it on its way through the decision-making process.

Most EU documents are available to the public. Here you will find a single access point to all official documents of the EU's institutions and agencies.

EU law covers many different areas, ranging from agricultural over energy to transport policy. You can read more about the different policy areas here on the Presidency website. Additionally, you can find a detailed description of each policy area here.

Voting results of the Council and Parliament are not always registered. However, the majority of votes are recorded electronically. It is therefore possible to keep track of votes in both the Council and the European Parliament.

The votes of the Council on legislative acts are registered, and on the Council's website you can see an overview of previous voting results.

Not all votes in the European Parliament are registered. The reason for this is that not all votes are electronic and MEPs sometimes vote by a show of hands. Today, more and more votes are, however, recorded electronically.

You can find a list of all registered votes on the European Parliament's website.

On the independent website votewatch.eu, you can find statistical summaries of how individual MEPs have voted. Votewatch.eu is not an official EU website, but has several private sponsors.