Developments in European information issues: Networks and relays – Services – Products, December 1999

Consolidation of EU law

Another current EUR-OP project is the plan to make the complete body of EU law available on the Internet in consolidated form. Where legislation has been heavily amended, this will be an important step in offering more straightforward access through one single version of the text. Early results should be available shortly on the Internet but the project is not expected to be completed for around three years.

EUR-OOP's integrated law service

Users are finding it increasingly confusing to work out what the difference is between CELEX, EUDOR and Eur-Lex and when to use which one. EUR-OP has announced that it is working on an integration programme to bring together the three legal services under the name Eur-Lex. How this will work in practice remains to be seen. Though new Commissioner Viviane Reding, responsible for Education and Culture, the Publications Office, Citizens Europe and Open Europe, announced the launch of the new service for early spring 2000, release to the public is not expected until mid-2000 if there is no slippage in the schedule. Meantime there is already evidence of the new developments as users of the official databases will be aware. Increasingly links are offered to pdf files for the full text of documents and more and more full text information is being made available through Eur-Lex. For the information professional trying to satisfy an urgent enquiry, however, the concern remains whether there will be fast and sophisticated search facilities to enable accurate pinpointing of key data. The laudable aim of easy access to EU law for the citizen must not preclude effective search options for the professional user.