Legal acts – statistics

Consult, by year and by month, the number of legal acts adopted in a given month as well as those repealed and expired in a given month.

For adopted acts, both those in force and those no longer in force are covered. There are separate figures for basic acts and amending acts (acts amending previously adopted acts*). The figures are based on the date an act was adopted. Corrigenda are excluded. The figures for repealed acts and expired acts are based on the end of validity date. Non-legislative acts are in italics.


Adopted acts
Basic Amending
Legislative acts - Ordinary legislative procedure
Regulations of the European Parliament and of the Council 42 20
Directives of the European Parliament and of the Council 13 14
Decisions of the European Parliament and of the Council** 3 2
Total 58 36
Other legislative acts
Council regulations 8 27
Council directives 1 1
Council decisions 262 104
Total 271 132
Non-legislative acts
Delegated acts
Commission delegated regulations 44 56
Commission delegated directives 0 6
Commission delegated decisions 2 1
Total 46 63
Implementing acts
Council implementing regulations 4 57
Council implementing decisions 11 26
Commission implementing regulations*** 360 214
Commission implementing directives 0 1
Commission implementing decisions 149 65
Total 524 363
Other acts
Commission regulations*** 25 60
Commission directives 0 0
Commission decisions 353 6
European Central Bank regulations 1 0
European Central Bank decisions 3 10
European Central Bank guidelines**** 1 7
European Central Bank recommendations 4 0
European Central Bank opinions 33 0
Total 420 83

* For bibliographical reasons, an act is classified as an amending act if according to its title it amends one or more acts, even if it also contains autonomous provisions.

** The vast majority of decisions have addressees (a Member State, a group of Member States, one or more companies). According to Article 288 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) a decision which specifies those to whom it is addressed shall be binding only on them.

*** Ephemeral acts are excluded. Acts related to day-to-day management of agricultural matters (‘ephemeral acts’) are generally valid for a limited period of time. Since 1 March 2011 they have been mainly adopted as Commission implementing regulations. Before that date they were mainly adopted as Commission regulations.

**** ECB Guidelines are legal instruments adopted in accordance with Article 12.1 of the Protocol (No 4) on the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank