EUR-Lex

EUR -Lex is a database ( Legal Information System ), which provides direct free access to European Union legislation and other documents classified as public. It can be seen in particular the Official Journal of the European Union and the Treaties, legislative acts, case-law and preparatory acts of the European Union and its predecessor organizations. The oldest documents date from the year 1951. The website is currently using (July 2013), more than 3 million documents in all 24 official languages ​​, is updated daily and according to the authorities responsible for the offer Publications Office of the European Union per year expanded by about 12,000 documents. EUR -Lex is based on the CELEX database.

Official Journal of the European Union

EUR -Lex provides direct access to the latest issues of the series, L ( Legislation) and C (Information and Notices ) of the Official Journal. Rows A and E are published as appendices to the C series ( for example, C 307 A, C 209 E). The S series is the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union, which includes calls for tenders and the TED website (Tenders Electronic Daily ) is accessible. By specifying the date and number of the publication direct retrieval of an official journal is possible. Furthermore, since 1998 available online Official Journal outputs can be consulted; all expenditures from 1998 upwards are available as PDF file. Use the search functions can - even before 1998 - the texts published in the Official Journal are queried.

Collections

The other texts are grouped in collections - treaties, international agreements, existing Union legislation, preparatory work, the judgments of the European Court of Justice in 1954, parliamentary inquiries - and are accessible via hypertext links. Within individual collections can be accessed existing acts or on recently published texts. The user can view them by using the following structured lists the documents. Important collections in addition to the Official Journal are:

• Treaty on European Union, TFEU, the Euratom Treaty ( primary law ), as amended and previous versions
• Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union
• EU legislation ( Acts, secondary legislation )
• Individual acts of the EU legislative process ( proposals, opinions, white papers, green papers, communications, reports and working papers of the European Commission)
• EU legislation (Court of Justice of the European Union with the European Court of Justice ( ECJ ) on the tip )
• Parliamentary Questions (European Parliament)
• International conventions
• EFTA Documents
• Other public documents.

Additional Services

In the interest of transparency can be found on EUR -Lex direct links to important documents and documentation sources such as the budget of the European Union and the registers of the institutions. In addition, a link refers to general information about the EU law. Visitors who know less with European questions, find information about the institutions of the European Union and European Union law, facilitate their search for the desired data. For users who want to learn about the formal aspects in the preparation of EU legislation provides EUR -Lex Notes to the recess. In addition, the legislative process can be followed. A document can be displayed in up to three languages ​​simultaneously. Moreover, there is the possibility of documents in various formats (. Pdf,. Html, doc., . Tiff) to download and save. For all documents analytical metadata ( reference, data, subjects, etc. ) are displayed on different tabs.

New Releases texts are highlighted. The visitor dossiers are also available, list the legal texts on current topics. Moreover, points out a monthly newsletter on the latest news and information about future developments. Finally, a list of links pointing to the most important pages of the European Union, such as e-Justice Portal, N -Lex, EuroVoc, TED, EU Bookshop, documents of the institutions and bodies of the Union.

Search in EUR -Lex

There are on the recent EUR -Lex page two types of search:

• The user interface simple search offers a wide range of search criteria and execute the search. About the simple search to get in another search. In this date, author, subject areas and keywords can keywords to search for. It is also possible to look over the document numbers ( CELEX number ) areas and sites.
• The user interface of advanced search provides a wider range of search and display options. The advanced search is programmed in Java and allows the prospective his quest to perform very accurate. Here you can not only search for the exact date, but it can also use the Boolean operators are used.

Launch of the new EUR -Lex pages in March 2013

Since March 2013, the new platform of the EUR -Lex runs parallel to the previous websites of EUR -Lex. The new EUR -Lex Access allows access to the official EU Official Journal, the electronic version under Regulation ( EU) No 216/ 2013 from 1 July 2013 granted the authenticity and legal effect. The paper version of the Official Journal so has no further legal force, unless the electronic version can not be published due to an unforeseen and extraordinary disruption of computer science systems. Each edition of the Official Journal is provided on the day of its publication by an advanced electronic signature, which guarantees their authenticity, integrity and immutability and is then available along with the signature file on EUR -Lex.

The new database includes many new features, including three search levels, a personalized ( My EUR -Lex ) and RSS feeds (formerly LexAlert ) and a newsletter service. Agent application for Web Services can search directly in WSDL (Web Services Description Language ) are carried out having to fill out on the site without search forms. There is also a presence on Twitter and Facebook.

For all other collections ( preparatory work, jurisdiction, consolidated versions of EU rules, etc.) in the meantime continues to serve the existing platform of EUR -Lex.