Developments in European information issues: Networks and relays – Services – Products, September 2000

Europa Chats

The Commission has created a site called Europa Chats to enable it to glean the public's views on current EU topics through participation in discussions with European Commissioners. Recent examples of issues covered are reform of the institutions and regional policy (Michel Barnier, 5 June 2000) and trade (Pascal Lamy, 12 July 2000). The next date for live discussion has been announced as 16 October 2000, again with Pascal Lamy on the subject of trade. The site at http://europa.eu.int/comm/chat/index_en.htm gives the texts of earlier exchanges. Detailed instructions on how to join in the chat and receive live images are available from the web pages. If you want to participate you are advised to set up the connection in advance to allow time to ensure that it works successfully.

New presentation of Fisheries website

The fisheries website now presents a new face, complete with appropriate graphics of boats and fish. Despite the rather annoying rolling text feature on the home page it is not all front and no content. As well as outlining the Common Fisheries Policy, it provides access to key documents and publications, news, the latest information on hot topics of special current interest and a good set of related sites. Documents and publications include information notes and fact sheets, a map of fishing quotas and areas, and a short video on the CFP which can be viewed by downloading the Quick Time plug-in from the web page. There is a considerable amount of useful information relating to fishing over-capacity, fleet reduction and quotas. If you need to know the limits on catches of northern prawns or turbot, this is where to look.

Justis.com Version 2

Drawing on comments and suggestions from users, Context has brought out an upgraded version of their Justis.com interface with a number of improvements and new features. Though they are keen to incorporate more sophisticated facilities such as those built into their CD-ROM products, the success is often dependent on the level of browser which their users have and they can only move at the speed of upgrade of their customers. An example of this is the improved printing facility where a print icon has been added to the toolbar of both the document screen and the results screen. This enables the printing of a selection of documents, not just the current one. Following the printing changes documents now retain the same pagination and formatting when printed out as they have on the screen. Enabling this entails the downloading of a small utility program from the Web. These improvements however will only work with Internet 4 or 5, and there are minor hitches still to be ironed out when printing from the CELEX databases. The retention of the original format and pagination is key in a development expected to be announced shortly in the UK which will approve the use in court of law reports printed from electronic sources. Currently the only recognised authoritative source is the original printed version.

Downloading of documents has also been upgraded. Copying and pasting of sections of text is still an option but it is also now possible to save or export documents in rich text format (rtf) which means that, as with the printing improvements, they will retain the format displayed on screen. To save space on the hard disk when downloading multiple documents, they are saved as a zip file and can be opened in Microsoft Word. While this works well with various versions of Word, it is not yet compatible with WordPerfect.

The J-link feature allows users to move between documents, whether they are in the same database or not, by highlighting any document reference that is not already a hyperlink, clicking on the J-Link button and jumping directly to the required reference. This has now been made faster and simpler to use as the J-Link button has been added to the toolbar. To work successfully however users must have Internet Explorer 5. Problems have been encountered too with the toolbar buttons not displaying correctly. The root of this seems to be the screen size setting. If you are using the 800 x 600 setting, there is not enough room for all the buttons to display on the document screen. Resetting to, for example, 1024 x 768 seems to provide the solution.

The J-View feature which was introduced on JUSTIS CD-ROMs is now also available on databases using the Internet interface. This gives a quick pictorial overview of the relationship between documents, making it easy to trace related documents.

The ability to save searches is yet another time-saving addition for improved efficiency. Once a search has been completed, click on Tools on the results screen, then on Saved Searches. To find out more or register for a free trial, look at the JUSTIS website at http://www.justis.com/. If you are already a JUSTIS user and have suggestions for other changes that you would like incorporated, e-mail customer.relations@context.co.uk.

Human Rights Law from Context

Context has just launched a new Internet service covering human rights law, including case law, conventions and legislation. Reports of cases before the European Court of Human Rights date from 1960. Conventions contained in the database are the European Convention on Human Rights, European Agreements relating to Person participating in Proceedings of the European Court of Human Rights, the European Social Charter, the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and the Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, plus the various Protocols. Frequently confused with EU law, these in fact stem from the Council of Europe. The database also incorporates UK legislation, a consolidated version of the Human Rights Act 1998. The charge for subscribing to the Human Rights database is £575 per annum but a discount of 20% is offered for early orders.

For more information ring Context on +44-(0)20-7267-8989 or e-mail enquiries@context.co.uk

ELCID database withdrawn

The ELCID database, formerly available on the website of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, has been withdrawn. It covered information on living and working in other EU member states. Users are referred now to the European Commission's Dialogue with Citizens website at http://europa.eu.int/citizensrights/

Stationery Office's new portal

The Stationery Office, UK agent for EUR-OP, has launched a new web portal called Access to Europe at http://www.accesstoeurope.com/. It brings together the key titles published recently by EUR-OP and organises them into subject categories such as business, employment, environment, pharmaceutical or statistics. Publication details and prices are listed, together with an online order facility which links to the http://www.ukstate.com site. Potential customers wishing to buy EU publications should find that this site improves their access to the essential information.

Data on environmental taxes

The Directorate General for Environment has mounted what it describes as a database on environmental taxes in the European Union Member States, plus Norway and Sweden, on its website. It is accessible at http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/enveco/env_database/database.htm. In reality it is more a series of country reports in the form of tables with footnotes and other additional explanatory text. This is not however to decry its usefulness. It gives details of a wide range of environmental taxation, such as for example on waste, energy, vehicles and road charging with explanations of the purpose of the taxes as well as the rates. As a comparative source it should prove invaluable. The reports are available by country then in pdf or html format. A more general report addresses recent trends in the application of environmental taxation. A link is provided to the Regional Environmental Center in Budapest for information on the situation in the Central and East European countries. See http://www.rec.org/REC/Programs/SofiaInitiatives/EcoInstruments/EI.shtml for the details. The OECD website at http://www.oecd.org/env/policies/taxes/index.htm/ is also cited as a source of more information on environmental taxes.