European Documentation Centre

COM documents are working documents of the European Commission.

• Find the full text of COM documents in the Westlaw Database.
• Access COM documents published after 1999 online through EUR-Lex.

Around 600–700 COM documents are produced each year.

Types of COM document

There are three types of document:

• Proposals for legislation: the texts of formal proposals for legislation from the European Commission, including "Explanatory memorandum" that explain the background and purpose of the proposal.
• Communications: pre-legislative consultative documents outlining the Commission's early thinking on a subject and seeking views and responses. Often called "green" or "white" papers.
• Reports on the implementation of policy: analysis and evaluation of the implementation of existing EU laws or policies.

COM documents are numbered sequentially, and begin at no.1 at the start of each calendar year.