Parliamentary Institute
Analyses

Papers

In this edition, the PI publishes thematically comprehensive, more detailed versions of the responses to clients’ requests, covering more countries. The Papers provide an overview of the different legislative options regulating certain areas of social life in different countries. They thus generate an invaluable knowledge base for choosing the appropriate arrangement for the Czech system. The key tools applied in the Papers are the comparative method, which enables a detailed and thorough understanding of the differences in legal arrangements, the sources of such differences and the consequences they lead to, and the analysis of a particular topic. The Papers are mainly used to describe the legislation of selected countries. The comparison focuses primarily on the Member States of the European Union.

Topical Breefings

Another edition, published with its own e-ISSN, is the Topical Briefings. In this series, anticipated topics that will appear on the agenda of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate are prepared in advance. The Topical Briefings edition also presents election results and current political developments, particularly in the EU Member States and candidate and associated countries, as well as economic developments in the euro area countries. The objective of this series is to provide Members of Parliament with information as soon as a certain topic is on their agenda.

Surveys

Another series with its own e-ISSN is the regular Survey of EU External Action, covering the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, enlargement and neighbourhood policies. It is prepared for the Committee on European Affairs, the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Defence Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, or for other interested parties. The Survey monitors regular developments in external action, both regionally (the EU’s relationship with individual countries and regions) and thematically (for example, any shift in the enlargement policy and defence initiatives). The Survey is followed by background documents providing detailed information on the areas of the external action that the Committees have decided to discuss in more detail and over a longer period of time, and other research papers (Topical Briefings). In the field of foreign policy, the department also prepares documents for foreign policy meetings of the members and bodies of the Chamber of Deputies.

Moreover, the Parliamentary Institute prepares a survey of economic events in the EU, published every two weeks in the Eurozone+ edition, summarising data on current developments and presenting, e.g. in illustrative graphs, comparisons of the developments in EU countries, the euro area and the Czech Republic. There is also more detailed information on some other topics, such as the state of the negotiations on the EU-US trade agreement (TTIP).

Background documents for foreign policy negotiations

For the use of Deputies and Senators, the Parliamentary Institute prepares information documents for negotiations with foreign partners. This typically involves regular inter-parliamentary meetings of delegations of national parliamentary officials, delegations to inter-parliamentary assemblies of international organisations, or the reception of international delegations. The purpose of these documents is to provide Deputies with brief information on the current agenda related to the subject of the negotiations, or on the activity and focus of foreign partners.

Analyses of selected EU documents

The publications in this series deal in detail with selected legislative and non-legislative documents issued by the European Commission. They are dedicated either to individual documents (draft legal acts, communications, white papers, reports, etc.) or to Commission initiatives in different policy areas involving several documents (e.g. reform of the EU regulatory framework for electronic communications).

European Union documents

Extensive electronic database of EU draft acts. It can be accessed on the Chamber of Deputies website under ‘EU Documents’ in the main menu. The database contains draft EU acts as they are released by the Union, in the Czech language and with accompanying information on each proposal and the progress of deliberations on it in the Chamber. The Committee on European Affairs selects from the above documents those which it decides to discuss. Each of the selected proposals is accompanied in the database by a resolution of the Committee on European Affairs and by expert information. The database enables search for individual EU proposals according to different criteria.

Opinions on compatibility with EU law and preliminary consultations

Compatibility opinions on bills, prepared by the Parliamentary Institute, can be found directly under the relevant Chamber of Deputies Document to which they relate. A link to the full text of the opinion is always provided on the Document cover sheet in the Chamber of Deputies Document database, which can be accessed from the main menu of the Chamber of Deputies‘ website.

Current agenda in Brussels

Weekly reports on the European agenda by the Permanent Representative of the Chamber of Deputies to the European Parliament – these are brief summaries of the most important events and topics on the European agenda in the current week. The aim of the document is to highlight and inform about the key discussions of the European institutions.

European agenda in the Chamber of Deputies

The aim of this document is to provide an overview of the activities and involvement of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic and its bodies in the EU legislative process and the discussion of European issues at national and international level. The document is intended to inform about the deliberations on legislative acts and other European documents and the resolutions adopted on them by the Chamber of Deputies and its committees, the participation of Deputies in interparliamentary meetings on European themes and other activities under the EU agenda.

Background documents for the Committee's meetings at international level

The Parliamentary Institute prepares information documents for meetings with foreign partners, especially for the Committee on European Affairs. Typically, these are regular meetings with representatives of European affairs committees from the parliaments of the V4 countries, the reception of the European Commission representatives or bilateral meetings with partner committees from other parliaments of EU Member States, etc. The purpose of these documents is to provide Deputies with brief information on the current agenda related to the subject of the meeting, or on the activity and focus of foreign partners within the framework of EU policies.

Infographics

Graphically arranged comparative and analytical materials for the needs of Members of the Parliament of the Czech Republic.