This page introduces useful sources for finding information on the European Union, whether for seminar papers, theses, or general research. The number of available resources can be difficult to navigate at first. Below you will find a few pointers and reflections to help you get started. If you focus on the resources below, I am sure you will find enough material for your purposes.
To briefly illustrate what the different sources can reveal, I will refer to two running examples: the Regulation on Artificial Intelligence (AI Act) and the EU–Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). If you want to find your own example, you can pick any of the completed legislative initiatives from the European Parliament’s Legislative Train, which is a useful resource for learning more about EU legislation.
The Treaties
The natural starting point for EU research is the EU Treaties. They go back to the “Treaty establishing the European Economic Community” (TEEC) signed in 1957 in Rome. The Treaty of Rome has been amended several times since. For example, the Merger Treaty of 1965 united the three formerly separate organisations — the EEC, the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC) and the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) — with separate Commissions and Councils into the European Communities. For a visual overview, see this diagram.
The Maastricht Treaty of 1992 first added a separate Treaty on European Union (TEU), complementing the Treaty establishing the European Community (TEC). With the Amsterdam Treaty, of 1997 all articles were renumbered, which means you need to be careful when comparing legal bases before and after Amsterdam. In another major departure from previous practice, the Lisbon Treaty turned the “Treaty establishing the European Community” (TEC) into the “Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union” (TFEU). You can find a comprehensive overview of all Treaty revisions on EUR-Lex, which is the most comprehensive database of everything related to EU law.
The two running examples illustrate why different legal bases matter. The AI Act is based on Art. 16 TFEU on data protection and Art. 114 TFEU on the approximation of laws. It was adopted using the Ordinary Legislative Procedure (OLP). CETA, as a trade agreement, mainly points you to Art. 207 TFEU on the Common Commercial Policy (CCP) and Art. 218 TFEU on the procedure for international agreements. In other words, CETA was not adopted under the OLP.
Secondary legislation
Based on the Treaties, the EU institutions can adopt a number of legal instruments. The types are set out in Art. 288 TFEU. Regulations are binding and directly applicable across the EU. Directives set out goals that all member states must achieve, but leave it to each state to enact laws suitable for achieving these goals given its national context. Decisions are binding, but usually more limited in scope. Finally, recommendations and opinions are non-binding instruments.
The procedure for adopting EU legal acts can vary. Nevertheless, most EU laws today are adopted in line with the Ordinary Legislative Procedure of Art. 294 TFEU. This procedure puts the Council and the European Parliament on an equal footing, which was not always the case historically. When you know little about a specific legislative act, it is often useful to read the recitals or locate the original Commission proposal. Both usually give you a good initial idea of what the act is about.
On EUR-Lex, you can not only find final legal acts, but also retrace the steps leading to their adoption. For example, the procedure history on EUR-Lex and the EU Law Tracker show the different steps from the original Commission proposal to the final AI Act, including documents from the European Parliament and the Council. This can help you understand how the positions of EU institutions developed over time, which is a demanding task but often necessary if you want to say anything substantive about which institution was more successful in shaping EU policy. The European Parliament’s Legislative Train also provides useful summaries, including links to key press releases at the end.
International agreements
International agreements are another major element of the acquis communautaire, a French term referring to the entire body of EU law. They are situated between the Treaties and secondary legislation. Ever since the Treaty of Rome, the EU has had the necessary powers to conclude international agreements in specific areas. In 1971, however, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) developed the implied powers doctrine. This enabled the EU to conclude international agreements “over the whole field of objectives” defined by the Treaty. In brief, this meant that even where the Treaty did not explicitly confer external powers on the EU, such powers were implied where the EU’s goals could not be reached through internal measures alone. This is a good example of integration through law.
Ever since the Treaty of Rome, the EU has concluded thousands of international agreements. You can find them in the databases of the Council and EUR-Lex. If you need general background information on the EU’s relations with certain countries or world regions, you can also have a look at the summaries offered by the EEAS, the Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade, and the Commission’s Directorate-General for International Partnerships. EU delegations also often provide useful information on the EU’s bilateral relations with the country in which they are located.
CETA illustrates how international agreements follow a different path from ordinary EU legislation. Trade agreements are negotiated by the Commission on the basis of a Council mandate and are adopted by the Council, generally by qualified majority, although unanimity is required in some sensitive areas. The European Parliament does not act as a co-legislator as it does under the OLP, but its consent is required before the Council can conclude many important international agreements, including modern trade agreements.
In the case of CETA, EUR-Lex provides a useful summary linking to the Council decisions on signature and provisional application, as well as the agreement text itself. The European Parliament’s Legislative Train also provides a helpful overview of the procedure, including the Parliament’s consent and the question of provisional application pending ratification by the Member States.
Audiovisual information
The EU’s news and media pages offer a wealth of information. The Commission’s Audiovisual Service is packed with videos, audio, and photos. It also includes Europe by Satellite, where you can, for example, watch Commission press briefings or follow major EU events live. The Council has its own live video service, where you can follow Council press conferences and other events. The European Parliament offers a similar resource through its Multimedia Centre. Together, these sites can give you a practical sense of how EU institutions work.
These audiovisual resources can also be useful for capturing key moments in a legislative or treaty-making process. For example, the European Parliament’s plenary recordings include the speech by Dragoș Tudorache (Romania, Renew Europe) as rapporteur for the AI Act, with interpretation available in all EU languages. Concerning CETA, the Council provides photos and videos from the signing ceremony. Such material is rarely sufficient on its own, but it can help you get a better sense of the political setting and public presentation of major EU decisions.
Press releases
Press releases can be useful if you need to reconstruct the positions of EU institutions. The Commission’s Press Corner is a useful starting point. Watch out for “memos”, “Q&As” and “FAQs”, as they often provide good summaries. The European Council and Council database contains press releases and statements, while the European Parliament’s press room can be found here. The Parliament’s Fact Sheets on the European Union are also a good place to start when you need concise background information.
The two running examples illustrate why “memos”, “Q&As” and “FAQs” can be so useful. For the AI Act, the Commission’s Q&A on general-purpose AI models under the AI Act provides useful background, while the European Parliament’s press release on the adoption of the AI Act and the Council’s press release on its final approval capture important institutional milestones. For CETA, useful examples include the Commission’s press release on the proposed signature and conclusion of the agreement and the later announcement that the EU and Canada signed CETA. Such texts rarely offer direct insight into disagreements between or within EU institutions, but they are excellent sources for understanding the substance of EU decisions.
While not strictly speaking press releases, let me add a few additional sources here. The EU’s Publications Office offers publications that can often be freely downloaded. For example, the General Report on the Activities of the European Union is a summary of what the EU has done in a given year, such as here. You can also check the Commission’s transparency pages, the Council meeting calendar, and European Council conclusions. To learn more about the European Parliament, this page on its organisation and rules is a good place to start.
Journalistic sources
Press releases provide a lot of insight, but they usually do not tell you what you are usually most interested in: which actor supported or opposed which parts of a proposal. For this, you will need to turn to reporters. Fortunately, the European media landscape is fairly well developed. This is one upside from the many crises the EU has gone through, as this has increased journalistic attention to European politics.
One excellent source is Politico Europe. The Guardian’s EU section is comparable, although it naturally has a stronger focus on stories that carry particular importance for the UK, even after Brexit. Euractiv is another excellent source and often covers rather technical stories that can be important for students of European integration. EUobserver is also useful, running fewer stories than some larger outlets but often with a good eye for institutional detail. The specific outlet you use does not matter too much. All of them are useful and will quickly draw you into the fascinating dynamics behind European decision-making.
Journalistic sources are particularly useful because you will usually want to understand political conflict lines, rather than just the final outcome. For example, Euractiv’s reporting on the AI Act helps you better understand how disagreements over the regulation of foundation models complicated negotiations among member states in the Council. CETA, by contrast, illustrates conflict inside the European Parliament. Euractiv’s reporting on the CETA vote highlights that the Socialists & Democrats group was divided over the agreement. These are the kinds of details that are difficult to reconstruct from official documents alone but are often essential when writing about such processes from a political science perspective.
Finally, let me mention LexisNexis, a database supporting full-text searches across various newspapers, such as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, El País, Le Monde and the New York Times. Whenever you think your story may not only have shaken Brussels but also drawn ripples in national capitals and around the world, LexisNexis can yield a wealth of additional information. Finding this information can be daunting simply because of the breadth of the database, but it is usually worth the effort. Students at the University of Salzburg can access it from here.
Archival sources
If you are studying an event going back 30 years or more, you can also consult archival sources. The Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance de l’Europe (CVCE) contains an impressive collection of primary documents on European integration. The Archive of European Integration (AEI) at the University of Pittsburgh does not have quite as sophisticated a visual interface. Still, there is a great deal of information waiting to be uncovered. Finally, the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) host many primary documents on European integration.
Working through archival material is perhaps the most daunting of all the EU resources. But those persistent enough to look are often rewarded with material that is impossible to find elsewhere and can provide unique insights into EU decision-making.