Talking that European Talk: A Structured Database of Pleneary Sessions of the European Parliament

The European Parliament (EP) is the subject of numerous research works. The uniqueness of this type of parliament, as well as the magnitude of the impact its decisions have on the countries which constitute the European Union (EU), are elements which capture the attention of researchers in political science. However, several of the particularities which render the European Parliament so fascinating, such as the presence of multiple languages during plenary sessions, have also made broad analysis of its textual content more difficult. This causes researchers to have to focus their analysis on only a few countries, depending on their familiarity with the language, on policy documents, or on votes. This means we are passing by the goldmine of information which EP debates have to offer in researching political discourse and regional collaboration, to name a few. But what if we could systematically analyze the entire contents of all of the debates which have taken place in the EP? This paper presents a new and centralized database structuring interventions made in the EP starting in 2014, both in the original language and translated to English. The process by which this high-velocity database was put together is presented, as well as a descriptive overview of the contents of this data source, which is continuously updated on a daily basis. Lastly, a dictionary-based textual analysis is led as an example of how the data could be used for future research. This database is made available to researchers with hopes of helping to fill the gap in literature imposed by various factors having previously impeded widespread textual analysis of the European Parliament.