This section of the website contains information about the legal status of advance directives in a number of countries in Europe. Most of the information was obtained from legal experts, government representatives (contacted through the Council of Europe) and Alzheimer associations. In some cases, this was supplemented by information taken directly from the relevant legal texts and from literature on this subject.

As laws differ greatly from one country to the next, the same information could not be provided for each country. For example, in some countries the law does not state what can or cannot be included in an advance directive. In others, it is unclear to what extent doctors are legally bound to comply with advance directives and/or in which circumstances.

In some countries, such as Austria, Luxembourg and Switzerland, law proposals have been made which are likely to significantly affect the status and use of advance directives in these countries. For this reason, although the final law may eventually differ somewhat from the law proposal, details have been included in the sections for these countries.

In a few countries (e.g. Greece, Portugal and Turkey), the concept of advance directives is practically unknown and advance directives do not have legal status. Consequently, it was not possible to include information for these countries.