How to follow Parliament’s work: a short guide
Parliament’s services put a wide range of tools and information services at your disposal to help you follow the work in committees and during plenary part-sessions.
Covering plenary sessions
Parliament sits for twelve plenary sessions in Strasbourg and a number of mini-sessions in Brussels each year. View the 2023 calendar.
In the week before each Strasbourg part-session, parliament’s press service publishes a newsletter on the main topics on the agenda. It also holds a press briefing with Parliament’s group spokespersons on Friday at 11.00 in the Anna Politkovskaya press room in Brussels. A last-minute briefing takes place at 16.30 on the Monday of the session in the Daphne Caruana Galizia press room in Strasbourg. Political group leaders regularly brief journalists in the Strasbourg press room on Tuesdays. Check the schedule of press conferences here (click on “other”). All briefings are webstreamed and recorded. Journalists can also ask questions remotely.
The press service publishes a newsletter ahead of any mini-session held in Brussels and the Parliament’s spokespersons brief journalists on the main topics on the plenary agenda from the VoxBox studio.
During plenary sessions, the press service issues alerts and press releases, a number of them in all EU languages, which are available on the Parliament’s pressroom webpage. To receive the newsletter briefing, press releases and media alerts via email, sign up via the News Subscription Services.
Press officers are available in the Parliament’s press room during the part-session ahead of plenary votes and to explain voting outcomes. They can be contacted via email and telephone - according to language and policy area.
Parliament’s press service Twitter account @EuroParlPress will provide the most up-to-date information about the session. Committees also have dedicated Twitter accounts publishing useful information and updates related to their respective policy areas.
Official documents and background information
Parliament’s plenary webpage provides the agenda, texts and amendments, voting schedules, voting lists and vote results as well as live streaming and video recordings of the part-session, with interpretation in all EU official languages. Alternatively, the sessions can also be watched via the Europe by Satellite webpage.
Ahead of the session, parliamentary services prepare background materials on the debate and vote topics. The European Parliament’s Research Service prepares briefings on legislative proposals that MEPs will vote on and Parliament’s News page offers a selection of interviews with lead MEPs and articles on topical issues as well as infographics. The Multimedia Centre provides further video and photo materials to download free of charge.
Each legislative proposal is registered and tracked in the publicly accessible Legislative Observatory database, where documents for each stage of the procedure and the names of MEPs steering the legislation through parliament can be found. The Legislative Train is another useful tool for tracking draft legislation.
Information on how EU decisions benefit citizens and regions can be found at the page What Europe does for me. Graphs, charts, podcasts, tables and maps with statistical data organised by subject can be found on the EP Research Service Graphics Warehouse page.
Covering discussions and votes in committees
Before they are debated and voted on in plenary, legislative proposals, resolutions and own-initiative reports are scrutinised and voted on in parliamentary committees (see parliamentary calendar). Read more about these procedures and committee work.
Parliament’s press service sends out information on the highlights of the upcoming week, which is also available on the News page. You can sign up for the mailing list here. Press officers use Twitter to inform about the key issues on a committee agenda, and use it to issue press releases and the details of press conferences following committee votes.
The committee-specific press service Twitter accounts are listed here. The contact details of the press officers covering specific policy areas and committees are available on the Parliament’s Press room webpage.
Documents and contact details of MEPs
The list of members on each committee and their contact details can be found on committee webpages, as can agendas, meeting calendars and other meeting documents such as texts and amendments, voting lists, the names of rapporteurs and committee coordinators. Press releases related to votes in committees, hyperlinks to watch the meetings online and studies conducted at the request of the committee are also available on the committee webpages.
Background materials are prepared by EP services ahead of votes in committees, and can be found on the EP Research Service web page as well as on the EP News page.
Accreditation
To access Parliament’s premises and to use the rooms and resources available to them, journalists require accreditation. Find detailed and practical information on the types of accreditation available in the Parliament’s Press room webpage. Click here to apply for accreditation.