STRATEGIES

For EU Legal Research

Fundamental Source

The EU Glossaryhttp://europa.eu/scadplus/glossary/index_en.htm

(Access from the documents tab on the main Europa page.)

If you want to peruse in subject categories…

• SCADPlus • Commission’s alphabetical index• Commission Library’s catalog• Panoramas

SCADPlus

This source summarizes and links to legislation. It doesn’t get you to every

possible underlying document.http://europa.eu/scadplus/scad_en.htm

So, that’s how you get from SCADPlus to the law.

Now…

The Commission’s Alphabetical Index

http://eurunion.org/infores/eu_a.htm

(Actually, there are two.)

This one is managed by the the Commission’s library in the U.S.

This one is managed by the Commission headquarters in

Brussels.

Both alphabets get you to similar pages.

If one doesn’t have a listing that helps you, go to the other

alphabetical index.

If you click on “air quality” in one index, you get…

The other alphabet lists “air quality data” and “air quality legislation”

as two separate entries.

If you click on the legislation link,

You land in Eur-Lex.

So, those alphabetical lists are easy to browse and can get you to either primary or contextual information

pretty efficiently.

The Commission Libraries Catalog

http://ec.europa.eu/eclas/F

Panoramas

Under the activities tab on http://www.europa.eu.int

click on topic, then choose “panorama.”

If you click on one of those summaries of legislation, you get

to the SCAD-Plus material.

If you scroll down through a Panorama page, you can jump

into the law.

If you are not searching by subject…

Use the Index to Information Sources

http://europa.eu/geninfo/info/index_en.htmUnder the services tab on the

main Europa page.

Notice that this legislation list is the ONE place where you can

see simple one-line distinctions between the various sources of

EU legislative information

The Official Journals(EU version of government gazette)

The “C series” of the journal has communications such as minutes of the Parliament, decisions and resolutions of the

institutions, and government notices. The “CA series” is an annex with additions to legislation and job ads. The “CE

series” has major Commission proposals and the Commission’s answers to questions. The “L series” contains

the text of legislation.

Use the Official Journal when you are monitoring legal

developments by topic or agency.

Bulletin

This is also chronological and it also has information from all of the

EU lawmaking bodies.

EUR-Lex

Is the route to primary law in force and in-progress.

For legislation in progress or legislative history

You can choose between Pre-Lex and OEIL (the Legislative

Observatory)

Pre-Lex includes more Council and Commission documents…

But you cannot distinguish between them because Pre-Lex merely names

them. If you already know about a source, start with Pre-Lex.

OEIL has commentary about each stage of the legislative

procedure.

If you haven’t already learned about particular stages of a law’s development, start here and

then look to Pre-Lex to fill-in any gaps that might exist for a particular stage.

Document Registers

Council, Commission, and Parliament each have document

registers.

Use those when you have exhausted the ordinary Eur-Lex

offerings.Even if you don’t have a document number, you can investigate internal reports or find

other background information as long as you can describe the issue and relate it to

eventual legislation.

The End