Green papers and white papers
Green papers are discussion papers published by the Commission on a specific policy area. Primarily they are documents addressed to interested parties - organisations and individuals - who are invited to participate in a process of consultation and debate. In some cases they provide an impetus for subsequent legislation. The consultations can be accessed on the Your voice in Europe site.

White papers are documents containing proposals for Community action in a specific area. They sometimes follow a green paper published to launch a consultation process at European level. While green papers set out a range of ideas presented for public discussion and debate, white papers contain an official set of proposals in specific policy areas and are used as vehicles for their development.

Registers: access to internal documents
The registers will help you to identify categories of document, related to various activities of the Commission:

• Commission meeting;
• Work programme;
• Register of COM, SEC and C documents:
  • COM documents: proposed legislation and other Commission communications to the Council and/or the other institutions, and their preparatory papers;
  • SEC documents: internal documents associated with the decision-making process and the general operation of Commission departments;
  • C documents: legal acts adopted by the Commission in the exercise of its own or delegated powers;
• Register of the Committees’ deliberations;
• Register of expert groups;
• Application of Community law;
• Codecision;
• Contact the President.

Clicking on one of these categories will take you to a list of references and, in some cases, give you direct access to the full text.

Library

The site of the Commission's central library gives access to the ECLAS catalogue.

The library is located at:
Rue Van Maerlant 18
B-1049 Brussels
Belgium
From Monday to Thursday from 10.00 to 17.00 and on Fridays from 10.00 to 13.30.

EU Tube
EU Tube, the European Commission's new space on YouTube, keeps you up-to-date with EU activities through videos on a whole range of issues, from the EU's first steps, European art and the anti-smoking debate, to its current efforts on the environment.

Audiovisual service
The site of the audiovisual library gives access to audio, video and photographic Commission material.

General publications
These publications (booklets, maps, posters and postcards) explain the role of the European Union and its main policies. They are intended for the general public.

Document management policy of the European Commission
The e-Domec site (Electronic Archiving and Document Management in the European Commission) aims, in the framework of the transparency policy, to inform the citizen on the work progress of the policy on electronic archiving and document management of the European Commission. It contains all the decisions and important stages of this policy.

Archives
The site of the European Commission archives gives access to the ARCHISPlus database.

The reading room is located at:
Couvent Van Maerlant 
Rue Van Maerlant, 18
B-1040 Brussels
Belgium
e-mail: oib-archis-base@ec.europa.eu
tel. (32-2) 295 05 57
fax (32-2) 296 10 95
Opening hours: Monday to Thursday from 9.00 am to 12.30 am and from 2.00 pm to 5.00 pm, Friday from 9.00 am to 12.30 am and 2.00 pm to 4.00 pm.

Archival policy of the European Commission
The Archival Policy site contains documents and information concerning the internal and external policies of the European Commission on archives.
Internally, archival policy aims to put in place the legal framework, strategies and procedures that allow the Commission to manage its archives (Historical Archives of the European Commission) and to open them to the public after thirty years (Historical Archives of the European Union in Florence).
External aspects of archival policy include co-operation with the member states, the representation of the Commission within European and international archival bodies and co-operation with the other EU institutions (European Archives Group, DLM-Forum, INSAR, MoReq).