European Centre for Parliamentary Research and Documentation

The Centre aims to facilitate the exchange of information, ideas, and experiences between the administrations of parliaments in Europe.

Sharing successful practical experiences helps to intensify existing cooperation between parliaments in all areas of parliamentary business, including administration, legislation, information, research, and documentation.

All enquiries and responses since the year 2000 are saved in the ECPRD database, even those which arrive after the time limit has expired.

Both the Centre and the Conference of Correspondents are managed by two co-directors and co-secretaries appointed by the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

The conference entrusted the presidents of the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Emilio Colombo and Karl Czernetz respectively, to take measures to set up the centre.

1990 – 1996: During this stage the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe were subsumed into the work of the centre; Electronic Data Processing was intensified in the national parliaments; parliamentary homepages were created.