Historical Archives Service of the European Commission

Responsibilities

Since its establishment in 1983, the purpose of the Historical Archives Service of the European Commission has been to communicate, in accordance with the rules, the European Commission’s historical heritage as part of the common cultural heritage. There are 40 people working there. The reading room, located in Brussels, is easily accessible.

The Tasks of the Historical Archives Service are:

to collect paper or digital documents drawn up or received by the Commission, organised into files and with legal or historical value;
to update and describe them and place them in their historical context;
to ensure their retention and authenticity, in particular by implementing a long-term digital retention infrastructure;
to make them available through online tools, its reading room and the searches carried out by the archivists to respond to internal and external queries.

The legal basis for the archive services of the European institutions is Council Regulation (EEC, Euratom) No 354/83, amended by Regulation 1700/2003 and Regulation 496/2015.

More than 60 years of European history