In the EU system, the term "preparatory act" is used to refer to proposed legislation (as opposed to final legislation or act). The broader term "preparatory documents" means all documents corresponding to the various stages of the legislative or budgetary process. They include Commission legislative proposals, Council common positions, legislative and budgetary resolutions and initiatives of the European Parliament, and opinions of the European Economic and Social Committee and of the Committee of the Regions, etc.
If you wish to research the history of EU legislation or track pending legislation, it is helpful to have some understanding of the EU legislative process. There are four ways proposed legislation may become law in the EU: co-decision (COD), Cooperation (SYN), Assent, and Consultation (CNS).
Under the Lisbon Treaty, co-decision has become the "ordinary legislative procedure." Most EU legislation is adopted by the co-decision procedure. The co-decision procedure requires that legislation be adopted by both the European Parliament and Council.
An excellent step-by-step explanation of the co-decision process is available at the EU Commission website. If you know the law-making procedure, you can identify relevant documents. The Commission initiates legislation known as COM documents. Such documents include White Papers. If the legislation is passed via the co-decision procedure, you might look for the following documents: Parliamentary amendments, Common Position, Commission Opinion, and Joint text.
Eur-Lex's Law Making Procedures page allows researchers to follow the EU's legislative process, find out the status of particular legislation, and find related documents. Most of these procedures are inter-institutional, that is, between two or more EU bodies.
One can also track legislation through the European Parliament's Legislative Observatory. The Legislative Train Schedule website provides an engaging way to visualize the legislative components of the EU institutions' work program. By using railways and trains as a metaphor, it allows Members, Parliament staff, and the public to track the progress of legislative files from current and past terms of the European Parliament. In addition, Preparatory Acts are accessible via the Eur-Lex Advanced Search template.
