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European Union · @EUBillTracker

How an EU law is made — and how we track it

EU law is written by two co-legislators at once: the directly elected European Parliament and the Council, where member-state governments sit. Most of it is negotiated in rooms with no cameras. @EUBillTracker follows every file through the official registers and posts what just happened and what honestly comes next — in plain English, without jargon and without false certainty.

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The cast

Three institutions, one law

Under the ordinary legislative procedure — the route most EU law takes — nothing becomes law unless Parliament and Council both agree to the same text.

European Commission

Proposes. The EU's executive holds the near-exclusive right of initiative: no proposal, no law. It drafts the text both legislators then amend.

European Parliament

Co-decides. Directly elected. A lead committee and its rapporteur — the member steering the file — shape Parliament's position before the full plenary votes.

Council of the EU

Co-decides. Ministers from the 27 member-state governments, negotiating country positions into a common line, mostly through diplomats in working parties.

The path of a proposal

From Commission draft to the Official Journal

The labels in the gold-tagged boxes are the feed's actual post types — the same wording you'll see on your timeline when a file takes that step.

  1. The Commission proposes

    Every file starts as a Commission proposal with a procedure code — 2025/0400(COD) reads: the 400th procedure opened in 2025, under the ordinary legislative procedure ("co-decision"). From that code, the file can be followed for years, through every institution.

    On the feed

    📋 New legislative proposal 🗑️ Proposal withdrawn

  2. Parliament and Council work in parallel

    Unlike the US sequence — one chamber, then the other — the EU's two legislators digest the proposal simultaneously. In Parliament, the lead committee amends the text and adopts a report. In the Council, working parties negotiate until ministers agree a common line: the general approach.

    On the feed

    🗳️ Lead committee adopted its report 🧭 Council agreed its general approach 🧭 Political agreement in Council

  3. Trilogue: the closed-door middle

    Rather than volley the text between readings for years, the institutions usually negotiate directly: trilogues — informal three-way talks between Parliament, Council and Commission. This is where most EU law is actually settled, and it happens behind closed doors, on no published schedule. The feed says so plainly rather than pretending to a timetable that doesn't exist.

    On the feed

    🧭 Negotiating mandate for trilogue talks 🤝 Provisional deal between Parliament & Council confirmed 🤝 Lead committee approved the trilogue deal ↩️ Lead committee rejected the negotiated deal

  4. Parliament votes in plenary

    The full Parliament — 720 members — votes on its first-reading position, usually confirming the trilogue deal. This is the vote that makes headlines, but by now you know how much happened before it.

    On the feed

    🗳️ Parliament adopted its 1st-reading position ❌ Parliament rejected the proposal ↩️ Plenary sent the file back to committee

  5. The Council decides

    If the Council approves Parliament's position unchanged — the norm when a trilogue deal held — the act is adopted. If it amends instead, the file goes to a second reading, and in the rare hard cases beyond that, to conciliation.

    On the feed

    ✅ Adopted — Council gave the final green light 🧭 Council adopted its 1st-reading position

    The long road: second reading and conciliation

    When the early deal fails, the procedure's full machinery engages: Parliament gets months to accept, amend or reject the Council's position; persistent disagreement convenes a conciliation committee — last-chance talks to agree a joint text, or the file dies.

    🗳️ Lead committee adopted its 2nd-reading recommendation 🗳️ Parliament decided at 2nd reading ✅ Act adopted — Parliament approved the Council's position ⚖️ Conciliation committee convened — last-chance talks 🤝 Conciliation deal — joint text agreed 🗳️ Third-reading decision on the conciliation text ❌ Rejected — procedure closed

  6. Signature and publication

    The Parliament and Council presidents sign the act, and it is published in the Official Journal of the European Union — the moment it formally becomes law, entering into force by default on the twentieth day after publication.

    On the feed

    ✍️ Signed — publication next 📜 Published in the Official Journal

    Regulation or directive? It matters.

    A regulation applies as written, everywhere in the EU, from its start date. A directive binds member states to a result but must first be transposed into 27 national laws by a deadline the act sets. The feed makes the distinction every time — "it's law" means different things for the two.

  7. The other routes

    Not everything travels by co-decision. For some areas Parliament is only consulted; for others — enlargement, major international agreements — its consent is a yes-or-no gate it can slam shut. Parliament also passes non-binding resolutions; the feed always labels them as exactly that, because a resolution that changes nothing shouldn't read like a law that does.

    On the feed

    🗳️ Parliament adopted its opinion (consultation) 🗳️ Parliament voted on consent ❌ Consent refused — Parliament blocked the act 🗳️ Parliament adopted a resolution (non-binding)

What a post looks like

Anatomy of an update

Every post names the file, its procedure code, the rapporteur and lead committee; the dated event; and a "what's next" that states only what the procedure actually guarantees. Where the honest answer is "closed-door talks, timing not published", that is what the post says.

EU Bill Tracker
@EUBillTracker

🇪🇺 Amending Directives (EU) 2018/2001, (EU) 2019/944, (EU) 2024/1788… | 2025/0400(COD) Rapporteur: Niels Fuglsang (S&D) | Lead committee: ITRE 📅 02-07-2026 | 🧭 Negotiating mandate for trilogue talks What's next: Trilogue talks with the Council can begin once the Council side has its own mandate. Closed-door rounds follow; timing is not published. Summary: This proposal aims to speed up the process of obtaining permits for various projects and activities. It seeks to reduce bureaucratic delays and make it faster for people and businesses to get official approval for their plans. [AI-Generated] Source: OEIL procedure file 2025/0400(COD)

A real post from the feed. Dates, names and vote numbers come from the record verbatim; the plain-English summary is AI-written and labeled.

Where the data comes from

European Parliament Open Data — the Parliament's official API
Procedure events, plenary agendas and roll-call votes, published under an open licence (CC BY 4.0).
Cellar — the EU Publications Office's data warehouse
Council-side events and procedure phases, queried directly from the EU's own semantic database.
OEIL — Parliament's Legislative Observatory
The canonical per-file dossier: rapporteur, lead committee, status. Every post cites its OEIL procedure file, so any claim can be checked against the source in seconds.

The feed reconciles all three sources on weekday and weekend schedules; if a field is missing from the record — no rapporteur yet, no tally — the line is omitted, never guessed.

Now watch the other system

Congress makes law by a very different route — sequential chambers, a 60-vote Senate gate, and a presidential veto. Seeing both side by side is the point.

How a US bill becomes law → Follow @EUBillTracker