Number of meetings and topics addressed (1975-2014)

For each year since 1975, the first graph shows the number of meetings held by the European Council (blue line, right-hand scale) and the number of topics it addressed (orange bars, left-hand scale). The number of topics addressed is derived from Dr Alexandrova’s analysis of the conclusions published after each European Council meeting. Her analysis splits the text into ‘quasi-sentences’, which are then classified in one of over 200 ‘topics’ under 23 broad ‘policy areas’. Her full study comprises 48 367 ‘quasi-sentences’ for the period 1975-2014. She gives the following explanation to aid understanding of her methodology:
‘The sentence “Substantial progress has been made towards the attainment of the EU targets for greenhouse gas emission reduction, renewable energy, and energy efficiency, which need to be fully met by 2020” (21 March 2014) is split in three. The three sub-codes attached to it are global warming, alternative and renewable energy, and energy conservation, which fall under the major topics environment, energy and energy, respectively. The separate parts split out of a single sentence can be assigned the same codes when they belong to the same issue category. … Whenever a sentence does not contain more than one issue, no splitting takes place.’