EUR-Lex is the official “access to European Union law” sponsored by the European Commission. It contains a vast amount of EU legal information of all kinds and has excellent search capability. EUR-Lex is available free to anyone with access to the Web. Some of the more significant components of EUR-Lex are summarized below.
- Treaties - A comprehensive collection of EU treaties, including consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the the European Union (formerly the EC Treaty), the Treaty of Lisbon, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, among others.
- Official Journal of the European Union - Electronic versions of the Official Journal, current to the day, and with an archive going back decades.
- EU Legislation - A comprehensive collection of all EU legislation currently in force.
- Consolidated acts - A collection of important legislative enactments as amended.
- Preparatory documents - A comprehensive collection of proposals for legislation made by the European Commission.
Another sector of EUR-Lex called National law has the N-Lex gateway to databases of national law in the member states, as well as a collection of National transposition measures, which are the measures to implement EU directives into national law.
Europa is the official Web portal to EU information, sponsored by the European Commission. Europa has a good search capability. Some of Europa's more significant elements are:
- Under “Institutions, law, budget > Institutions and bodies” links to the websites of all the EU institutions. Note that each EU institution has its own website containing large amounts of information. (See below for more information.)
- Under “Priorities and actions > Actions by topic” overviews of EU action in 36 fields, with links to relevant EU bodies and documents.
- Under "Institutions, law, budget > law" links to the treaties, to summaries of the types of EU legislation, and to search facilities for EU legislation and case-law..
- Under “News and events” links to press releases on all aspects of EU action.
