This two-volume set presents the proceedings of the Second International European Conference on Parallel Processing, EuroPar '96, held in Lyon, France, in August 1996. EuroPar '96 was organized in 14 workshops covering the whole spectrum of parallel processing. The comprehensive proceedings constitute a unique record of the state of the art in parallel processing research and development: the 224 papers included together with four invited papers were selected from a total of 383 submissions by authors from 40 countries; 554 referees were involved in the selection process and the index lists 521 contributing authors.