ask the records — answers from the archives

The minutes of the European Commission's weekly College meetings, 2000–2026: what the Commissioners discussed, decided, approved and noted, meeting by meeting, in the Commission's own record. Each meeting is held as its agenda items (13,241 across 1,103 meetings), searchable and openable as its original PDF, with an attendance list for every meeting and a reviewed list of the countries the minutes mention. Ask what the College said about a subject, who attended, when a meeting was held, or how often a country came up; every answer cites the meeting it draws on.

What this shelf can compute

For questions it can compute, the answer is calculated from this shelf's records rather than inferred from a sample of passages. Other questions are answered from the passages themselves, quoted and cited.

Records organized: ready
Names and dates reviewed: ready
Counts and comparisons: ready
Checked against the records: ready

What these marks mean

A check means ready on this shelf; a cross means not available yet.

Records organized. Every meeting has been separated out with its date and the people in it, so the collection can be counted and filtered rather than only searched.

Names and dates reviewed. A scholar has checked the names, places and dates the computed answers use, and those decisions are on the record.

Counts and comparisons. The desk counts, ranks and combines, and says so when a question asks for more than these records can support.

Checked against the records. Every computation is checked automatically against results taken straight from the collection.

Help improve this shelf. Ask the questions you actually want answered. If an answer is wrong, incomplete, confusing, or unexpectedly useful, say so. What readers ask is what decides which capabilities are built and tested next.

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About the sources

WHERE THE ORIGINALS COME FROM. Every record links to its page in the Commission's public register, and for most meetings that page still serves the PDF. For 172 of 1,103 meetings it no longer does: the 2000 minutes (45 meetings) have been removed from the register entirely, and 127 meetings between 2003 and 2009 are listed but not published for download — the register offers a 'Request document' route via EU Login instead. Both were verified in a browser, not only programmatically, in August 2026; the register's own availability can change after that date. For those meetings, and for every other meeting on this shelf, the original PDF shown here is a copy held in this archive with the permission of the collection's principal investigator, acquired from the Commission's site between 2022 and 2026. Where the register still serves a document, its link is offered first and the held copy stands behind it.

Try a question

The desk also answers who, when, and how-many questionsAsk who, when, and how many

For researchers

Cite this

“European Commission”, from the European Commission's public register of College minutes. Ask the Records (Kevin Hegg, publisher), corpus version 51641dad1a4c, build 885, accessed 2026-09-14, https://asktherecords.fly.dev/shelves/european-commission/versions/51641dad1a4c.

Reviewers’ flags are welcome — “Something look wrong?” under any answer — and each travels with the exact answer it concerns.

Connections: who is recorded present together, and which countries each person's records mention — every number opening its records — browse the connections.

Research data: this shelf’s structured register (meetings, attendance, agenda items, the reviewed country list, coverage notes) is available to researchers on request — contact the site.