The EEA Annual Congress, which takes place at the end of August - early September, is a main event among the Association's activities. Annual congresses feature traditionally two plenary lectures in addition to the Presidential Address and consist of a number of invited paper sessions and panel debates as well as contributed papers sessions. In recent years, the EEA congresses have been held jointly with the Econometric Society. The plenary lectures and invited papers are published in the Papers and Proceedings issue of the Journal of the European Economic Association (JEEA) appearing in March-April of the year following the Congress.
The First Annual Congress was held in Vienna in 1986. Since then the EEA had congresses in many major cities in Europe.