This chapter describes the inputs into the legislative process. These inputs consist of the policy demands made by the main actors – the Commission, the European Parliament (EP) and member states’ representatives in the Council – on controversies raised by legislative proposals. The following three descriptive questions are addressed in this chapter:

1. To what extent are there patterns in the alignments of actors’ policy positions across a range of controversies?

2. To the extent that these patterns exist, what are they?

3. Do these patterns tend to emerge on particular types of controversies?

Before attempting to explain a phenomenon, which Chapters 4–6 do with respect to different actors’ policy demands, it is necessary to describe it systematically. With the benefit of good description, the explanatory analysis can focus on the most salient features of actors’ policy positions. Chapters 4–6 are based on some key insights from the present chapter. This chapter identifies a number of interesting patterns in the alignments of actors’ policy positions, but the main descriptive finding is that actors’ positions vary considerably across different controversial issues. This is true of variation in the positions of the two supranational actors, the Commission and EP, and of the positions of member states’ representatives.