Free access to EU law, June 1998

The most important new development in electronic access to EU information since the last issue of this column has been the launch in April of the free EUR-Lex service. Accessible via the Europa server at http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex it was well trailed in advance of going public and -- for all who are conscious of the constant need to verify links from web pages -- it has the distinction of already having changed its name and address in the short time between being announced as due to go live and becoming generally available. Originally designated EU-Law, it now has a more linguistically neutral title appropriate to its multilingual content.

Updated daily and containing documents in all eleven official languages, it currently offers access to the full text of the treaties, the last twenty days of the Official Journal L and C series, consolidated legislation and case law. Much of this -- with the exception of the Official Journal -- is in fact already freely available but is usefully gathered together here under one access point; the case-law link, for example, connects to the excellent Court of Justice site which offers a search interface to locate the text of recent judgments. This is not, however, the end of the story. There are also plans to include the text of existing secondary legislation drawn from the CELEX database together with preparatory legislation, creating what is expected to be one of the largest Internet sites in the world. If this indeed happens, it will cover much of the key content of CELEX and would be especially useful were it to include not just the text of COM documents but also the explanatory memoranda. There are, however, no plans to incorporate CELEX into EUR-Lex and CELEX will remain a subscription service offering a sophisticated and flexible search facility for information professionals. In contrast the aim of EUR-Lex, in response to calls for openness and transparency and particularly in the light of obligations laid down in the Amsterdam Treaty, is to provide free access to Community measures in a simple and user-friendly way for the ordinary citizen.