Official Journal listing of COM Documents

A notice in the Official Journal of the European Communities points out that a list of documents forwarded by the Commission to the Council is published each week in the Official Journal "C" series. The documents listed are those sent by the Commission to the Council and (in ...

A notice in the Official Journal of the European Communities points out that a list of documents forwarded by the Commission to the Council is published each week in the Official Journal "C" series.

The documents listed are those sent by the Commission to the Council and (in specific cases) to the European Parliament and/or other Community bodies as part of the Community decision-making and legislative process.

Known as COM documents, these texts may be memoranda, reports, or other written communications, or they may be in the form of proposed legislation (ie Commission proposals intended to serve as a basis for Council Resolutions, Recommendations, Directives, Regulations, or Decisions).

Included, for instance, are reports from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament concerning the implementation of White Papers on aspects of Community policy, as well as communications to the Council of the Commission's assessment of possible Community actions in various sectors, and the progress of Community relations with third countries. However, the largest number of COM documents relate to proposals concerning decision-making or legislation pursuant to Article 149 (3) of the EEC Treaty.

COM (Commission) documents are identified by the abbreviation COM in their reference number, and are published by the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities (EUROP) in all nine official languages. They are available from the Sales Offices listed (for that particular language version) on the back cover of each Official Journal.

They contain an explanatory memorandum and, where appropriate, an SME impact statement indicated by the footnote "(1)".

Those documents indicated by the footnote "(2)", on which the European Parliament is to be consulted, and which have already been published in the Official Journal "C" series under "Preparatory acts" will continue to be published in order to inform readers of the progress of texts at the various stages of the decision-making/legislative process .

It should be noted that, in addition to this information obtainable from the Official Journal, the CORDIS RTD-ComDocuments Database contains records of a large number of COM documents selected on the basis of their relevance to Community Research and Technological Development matters (an abstract is provided together with an indication of the status of the document, references, dates and other key information).

The database also includes records of RTD-related SEC (Secretariat-General) documents. These latter are normally internal Commission texts (working papers, Commission opinions, communications, evaluations, sectoral and policy reviews, and reports) and are not generally available to the public.

Where successive versions of a document exist, they appear on the RTD-ComDocuments Database as separate entries, each with its own reference number. Again, this permits the user to follow the progression of interesting texts through the various stages of the conduct ofthe business associated with the subject matter of the document.