Developments in European information issues: Networks and relays – Services – Products, January 2001

EUR-Lex plus coming soon

With EUR-Lex plus there will be access to the pdf archives of the OJ from 1 January 1998. What remains to be decided is whether the facility will be available free of charge or at a fee. For those with a flat rate subscription to CELEX it will come as part of the deal. It will therefore be possible to display texts exactly as they appeared in the Official Journal in print, including any graphics or tables without having recourse to ordering documents through EUDOR. This format is currently only available from the beginning of 1998 but there are plans to go further back though as yet no schedule for the work.

EUDOR format

In contrast to EUR-Lex, EUDOR uses scanned images in TIFF (Tagged Image File Format). This can produce large files - the average size of a TIFF page for example is 70 kbytes, so bear this in mind if you have a limit to your e-mail box. Shortly however it will be possible to select a single page rather than the whole document. There are four delivery options: FTP, mail, fax or e-mail. Mail with its extra costs and slow speed is bottom of the list for convenience. Fax has a maximum page limit of 50 pages, while e-mail has an upper limit of 150 pages but is fast and reliable. FTP and e-mail files are in compressed TIFF format and require an “unzipper” and a TIFF viewer in order to open, display and print, though free tools are offered on the EUDOR site under the FAQ section. To obtain a document using FTP, you collect it from the Order Record page by clicking on the entry to either save or open it. Users with some browsers may encounter problems with the default setting for downloading. TIF_G4G offers one file per document instead of one file per page as in TIF_G4. A single file is clearly more convenient, but if that is not successful try the alternative. Where the e-mail option is selected, an FTP order will still be generated automatically in case the document is too large for your mailbox. Orders stay available for 60 days to cover just this sort of eventuality, so all is not lost if it does not work correctly first time. References can be identified through a search using the EUDOR search engine, but there are also direct links to EUDOR from the CELEX database where TIFF is just one of the display formats offered.

Register of MEPs' financial interests

Journalist Mark Thomas, in a recent programme he made for Channel 4, highlighted the difficulties of accessing information about the financial interests of Members of the European Parliament. According to the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament a register of MEPs' financial interests must be kept. It should also be open for public inspection. In practice however it is not easily accessible, as the register is simply a collection of hand-written forms completed by the MEPs themselves in the various official languages of the EU and kept in a locked filing cabinet in the European Parliament Buildings in Brussels and Strasbourg. Viewing is only permitted under supervision of a member of staff and no photocopying is allowed. It is however possible to make hand-written notes, and this is what Mark Thomas's team of researchers have done. They spent days literally transcribing the register. From that information they have built a database and made it publicly available on the web at http://www.mepsinterests.com/. Their copy of the MEPs' declarations was compiled in November 2000 so does not include later changes and though they have tried to be as accurate as possible the researchers clearly had difficulty deciphering some of the handwriting. Entries in some fields are simply “illegible”. The database can be searched by MEP's name or by nationality, but do not expect any startling revelations. Some quick checks of a number of MEPs from different member states produced very little recorded information. Will Mark Thomas's efforts to promote openness and transparency encourage the European Parliament to produce its own authoritative version of the database? In the meantime as a result of the Channel 4 programme and publicity on eurotalk and lis-link discussion lists, the website has been overwhelmed by heavy traffic. Hopefully it will be up and running again shortly.

Comprehensive set of 1999 EP election results

The European Parliament website now hosts a collection of links bringing together the member states' pages giving detailed breakdowns of the official results of the European Parliament elections in June 1999. Most of the information is presented in the language of the country concerned though some also offer an English version of their site. However since much of the data is statistical and concerns countries or individuals, it is not difficult to decipher what it means. Visit http://www.europarl.eu.int/topics/elections99_en.htm to check it out.

CELEX in the new millennium

Building on the new interface of 2000 we can expect to see a different look to CELEX in 2001 with a new registered logo. The changes however will be more than cosmetic. The arrival of the blue period in 2000 did little to change the functionality of the menu search from its previous yellow incarnation, though it did bring in the advanced search option. Reloading of Court of Justice texts and Common Position texts made gradual improvements to presentation. The Exit button also disappeared. For 2001 however the content will be enhanced. Three new sectors are being introduced: E for European Surveillance Authority and EFTA Court documents; O for consolidated texts; and C for OJ C documents, initially from 1995 onwards.

For documents published in the Official Journal in the framework of the EEA Agreement, a document number will start with the letter E and can be constructed by using the following letter codes:

A International Agreements
C Acts of the EFTA Surveillance Authority
G Acts of the EFTA Standing Committee
J Decisions, Orders, Consultative Opinions of the EFTA Court
P Pending Cases of the EFTA Court
X EFTA - Other Acts

As an example from the database, E2000C0142 is the document number of the “Decision of the EFTA Surveillance Authority No 142/00/COL of 26 July 2000 on the closure of a case initiated on the bases of a complaint concerning alleged State aid to certain enterprises through the contract conditions for electricity” published in the OJ L 324 21.12.2000, p.35. All new EFTA documents are being loaded as they are published in the OJ while older ones, from 1994 onwards, will be added gradually.

From January 2001 coverage of the C series is to be extended to include all documents instead of just the selection of most important ones previously loaded. The additional ones will be classified in the new sector C but will not contain the full legal analysis of the other key documents which will continue to be classified as before and will be given the full analytical treatment. The document number for the new C sector additions is to be composed of the initial letter C for the sector, four digits for the year, three digits for the C series issue number, and two digits for the number of the document's sequence in the OJ issue. Loading will start with documents from 1995 to 1999, followed by newly published material and then the gaps will be filled.

CELEX now contains the acts constituting the Schengen Acquis which were published in the OJ L 239 22.9.2000. These have been classified in sector 4 of the database.

From February 2001 we can expect to see the National Implementing Measures fully available again and up to date. They will however carry a disclaimer about reliance being placed on the data offered as it is not the CELEX database producers who compile the information.

Other changes on the way include new letter codes for documents with X and Y references in the document number field, those called “Other Acts” published in the OJ L & C series. No announcement of what these will be has yet been made. Colleagues using German and Danish texts can look forward to improved presentation with the introduction of rich characters in both languages. There will also be clearer signalling when Corrigenda apply only to a specific language version.

From 2001 there will be a new contract for the Helpdesk. Included in the terms of reference will be the requirement to respond to a query in any language within seven days.

There are now five display formats in CELEX: biblio for the basic bibliographic details; text/HTML for the full text display on screen (excludes tables and graphics); text/pdf for links to EUR-Lex; text/TIFF for a link to the scanned archive EUDOR to order the document in its complete original format; and all/HTML for the full record including all the analytic detail. Use the text/HTML format, to display in bilingual mode. One under-used feature for anyone who simply wants a list of results without displaying individual records in detail is the Print button. Located at the top of the menu bar on the left of the results screen, it seems to escape notice. Shortly the availability of pdf documents through EUR-Lex plus will be extended back to 1998 instead of just the last 45 days and a planned 1000 page credit for TIFF files via EUDOR will also be offered to annual subscribers. Both flat rate and pay as you go subscription options will be maintained but there will be a price increase for the annual subscription from 960 to 1140 euro in view of the additional content and functionality.

EUROVOC Thesaurus available on the web

Version 3.1 of the EUROVOC Thesaurus can now be consulted online free of charge in any official language as a read only file. This version incorporates concepts resulting from the Treaty of Amsterdam together with some user input. There will be gradual adjustments to the interface but this will not affect the content itself. The Thesaurus can be consulted by navigation through fields and their micro-thesauri or by using the search function. It can also be used as a translation aid as equivalent terms can be displayed in each of the official languages. Version 4 is planned for 2002 and is to be a complete revision. Contributions are invited from users and may be submitted electronically via the maintenance form. The deadline for suggestions is March 2001. EUROVOC Newsletter is posted on the site to keep users informed of developments.

There is a link to the Thesaurus from the CELEX home page, which makes it simple to consult it to improve your search results now that recent documents have EUROVOC terms added to the records. However there is no need to be a CELEX subscriber to be able to use the Thesaurus. You can go directly to EUROVOC at http://europa.eu.int/celex/eurovoc/index.htm/