How the EU has introduced 13,242 new pieces of legislation since May 2009

With Nick Clegg still insistent that only 7% of UK legislation comes from Brussels, I did a little research.

Using the Official Journal of the European Union, I went through and counted up all of the legislation contained within the 'Legislative' issue of the Journal since the European elections in May 2009. The results were nothing if not predictable.

Since May 2009, the European Union has introduced the following:

6646 Regulations
501 Directives
6014 Legislative Instruments (modifications to existing legislation, treaties, corrigenda, etc)
81 'other', including Commission guidelines and recommendations.

All of which gives a grand total of 13,242 pieces of legislation.

In a similar period (Jan 2009 to 31st March 2014), the British Parliament at Westminster has introduced 162 pieces of primary legislation (Acts of Parliament) and 14,125 Statutory Instruments (those laws which are introduced either by ministerial diktat or through delegated powers).

The full table by month is shown below for the European legislation:

Month	Regulations	Directives	Legislative Instruments	other
2009
May	93	18	89	0
June	115	20	108	0
July	132	8	95	0
August	94	27	48	0
Sept	123	9	128	0
Oct	130	23	97	0
Nov	116	14	79	0
Dec	139	17	209	0
2010				0	1931
Jan	120	21	114	0
Feb	77	10	83	0
Mar	109	11	128	0
Apr	94	6	81	0
May	106	1	64	0
June	112	10	91	0
July	119	8	97	0
August	89	12	57	0
Sept	98	2	144	0
Oct	118	7	95	1
Nov	113	9	95	0
Dec	171	14	119	3
2011					2609
Jan	71	7	70	2
Feb	121	8	90	1
Mar	115	19	108	1
Apr	119	22	91	3
May	104	4	77	1
June	108	1	120	4
July	114	11	120	4
August	115	1	43	2
Sept	103	6	179	2
Oct	125	3	114	8
Nov	131	7	94	3
Dec	159	9	175	2
2012					2797
Jan	77	2	67	1
Feb	94	3	83	5
Mar	115	6	112	3
Apr	82	2	55	0
May	87	1	71	0
June	121	2	107	0
July	120	3	115	1
August	82	2	93	2
Sept	109	1	93	3
Oct	112	5	179	1
Nov	109	14	107	1
Dec	153	7	168	3
2013					2579
Jan	83	4	98	1
Feb	89	7	55	2
Mar	122	2	107	0
Apr	92	0	54	2
May	106	5	75	4
June	136	22	102	2
July	107	4	87	0
August	89	5	67	0
Sept	106	0	46	1
Oct	131	2	123	0
Nov	158	5	210	0
Dec	190	10	151	1
2014					2663
Jan	86	17	70	2
Feb	104	7	96	1
Mar	133	18	121	8
	6646	501	6014	81	13242