EU codification and consolidation: Euro introduction

On the European Union’s portal for legal information, Eur-Lex, there is a useful sidebar with Preparatory acts.



It leads us to the reports and proposals of the Commission – COM documents – and to the accompanying SEC documents (often with more detailed background information).

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Codification

One way to simplify EU legislation is by replacing old legal acts, amended a few times (maximum ten), by new codified versions. Codification leads to a new act, although the exercise is technical. It does not change the substance of the original act, as amended, so the procedure is expedited.

A recent example of a proposal to codify EU legislation is the Commission’s Proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) No …/… of […] on the introduction of the euro (Codified version) (Brussels, 1.7.2009 COM(2009) 323 final). Procedure number 2009/0083 (CNS).



The proposal offers a clear example of the codification procedure.

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Consolidation

Eur-Lex often offers an unofficial consolidated (updated) version of a law. By using the simple search function for the legal act in question – in this case Regulation 974/98 – by year (1998) and number 974, the Bibliographic notice shows the existing consolidated versions.

In this case we find that the latest consolidated version is of 1 January 2009.




Ralf Grahn

European Union: Renewable energy legislation

The latest thematic file on EU legislation over at the legal portal Eur-Lex is Renewable energy (posted 26 June 2009).



Overview of EU law

Thematic files are collections of legal documents on specific fields of EU activity (legislative instruments, preparatory acts, case law, parliamentary questions, etc.).

The idea is not to be exhaustive but rather to group together the most relevant current legislation on the subject in question.

You can consult related acts and/or acts amending original acts in the bibliographic entry for each document.

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The thematic files are handy references for everyone interested in a particular policy area.


Ralf Grahn

Directory of European Community legislation in preparation

A new service of the European Union’s legal portal Eur-Lex is its Directory of European Community legislation in preparation.

(Although the European Union has practically replaced the term European Community except in legal documents, it is perhaps in order to refer to the “first pillar” EC in this context.)




The Directory is a helpful tool for those, who want to find the pending legislative proposals in any of twenty policy areas. It is then possible to narrow the search to a sub-area. Here is how Eur-Lex describes the tool and the main structure of the Directory:


Directory of Community legislation in preparation
You can print out the chapter of the Directory of Community legislation in preparation that you are interested in from the PDF files for each chapter. The larger chapters have been split into several PDF files.


• 01 General, financial and institutional matters (number of acts: 59)
• 02 Customs Union and free movement of goods (number of acts: 40)
• 03 Agriculture (number of acts: 110)
• 04 Fisheries (number of acts: 40)
• 05 Freedom of movement for workers and social policy (number of acts: 39)
• 06 Right of establishment and freedom to provide services (number of acts: 20)
• 07 Transport policy (number of acts: 91)
• 08 Competition policy (number of acts: 5)
• 09 Taxation (number of acts: 42)
• 10 Economic and monetary policy and free movement of capital (number of acts: 27)
• 11 External relations (number of acts: 412)
• 12 Energy (number of acts: 30)
• 13 Industrial policy and internal market (number of acts: 118)
• 14 Regional policy and coordination of structural instruments (number of acts: 17)
• 15 Environment, consumers and health protection (number of acts: 138)
• 16 Science, information, education and culture (number of acts: 24)
• 17 Law relating to undertakings (number of acts: 22)
• 18 Common Foreign and Security Policy (number of acts: 11)
• 19 Area of freedom, security and justice (number of acts: 114)
• 20 People's Europe (number of acts: 2)



Ralf Grahn

Eur-Lex: Access to European Union law

Eur-Lex, the legal portal of the European Union, offers an incredible amount of serious information about the EU. The centerpiece is the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), where the legislation and other official acts are published.

While press releases, multimedia presentations and news reporting cover the instant information needs, the published acts and proposals are the primary sources for practitioners and serious students of European Union affairs.



Here is how Eur-Lex describes the available documentation:


About EUR-Lex

EUR-Lex provides free access to European Union law and other documents considered to be public. The website is available in 23 official languages of the European Union; choose your preferred language from the language bar at the top of the homepage.
The contents of the site amount to some 3 600 000 documents with texts dating back to 1951. The database is updated daily and every year around 15 000 documents are added.

EUR-Lex offers:

• daily editions of the Official Journal of the European Union online,
• simple search, advanced search and browsing options,
• the possibility to display and/or download documents (PDF, HTML, DOC, TIFF),
• analytical metadata for each document.


I would like to access the Official Journal of the European Union

The Official Journal of the European Union is the principal source of EUR-Lex content and it is published in the early morning after every working day. It consists of two series: L (Legislation) and C (Information and Notices). E and A are Official Journals published as annexes to the C series (e.g. C 307 A, C 309 E).

Latest issues are accessible from the homepage; click on the links in the upper right-hand corner, just under the language bar.

Previous issues can be found by clicking on the OFFICIAL JOURNAL link on top of the left-hand menu. You can find an issue of the Official Journal by browsing or by searching. All issues from 1998 onwards are available in PDF. To access texts published before 1998, use the SIMPLE SEARCH – Search by publication reference (Official Journal).


I would like to search for a document

There are two search interfaces in EUR-Lex; SIMPLE SEARCH and ADVANCED SEARCH. While advanced search provides a fuller range of search and display features, simple search will accommodate most users’ requirements.

You have a wide range of search options; search by search terms, search by date, search by author, search by natural number, etc.

Another option is to browse our collections and directories; choose from treaties, international agreements, legislation in force, preparatory acts, case-law and parliamentary questions. Each of the aforementioned sectors offers a browsing feature, such as the Directory of Community legislation in force.


What do I do with my search result?

You have direct access to all the documents in your list of search results; just click on your preferred format. You can also check which languages and formats are available, display complementary data, sort or refine your search result to get more relevant documents (find these options on the yellow bar and/or the search box). You can review and/or combine the queries made in one session by clicking on Search history.

To get more information on a document follow the link ‘bibliographic notice’ (example). The notice is a display of metadata (author, dates, indexes, form, related documents, etc.) which provides insight into each document and shows relationships between documents. For bilingual display of a document follow the link Bibliographic notice + Text (bilingual display).


EUR-Lex also offers consolidated versions of documents (where available). These versions are intended for documentation purposes only and have no legal value. Find them in the bibliographic notice or by browsing the Directory of Community legislation in force.


What else can I do?

You can read about EU law, the legislative procedures and EU institutions. You can consult the selection of new documents on the homepage or consult our thematic files.

EUR-Lex also offers links to the budget of the European Union, the institutions’ registers and other documentation and information sources.

New developments are announced in our Newsletter.



Ralf Grahn

Legislation on European Parliament (Eur-Lex)

About legal materials related to the European Union.

Just in time for the European Parliament elections, the European Union’s legislative portal Eur-Lex has published a new thematic file with legislative instruments, preparatory acts and other acts on the European Parliament.




The thematic files are potentially useful for those who are interested in a certain area, but here I would like to add a word of caution. I checked two documents to verify the quality:

1) First, the European Parliament’s Rules of Procedure. The primary reference is to the original edition published in the Official Journal in 2005, but even if you look for the later information, you would miss later and the latest amendments in force, those entering into force after the European elections and the ones lying in wait in case the Treaty of Lisbon enters into force.


2) With regard to the Act concerning the elections of the members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage, you almost have to know in advance that you need to find the consolidated version, if you want meaningful information.

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Two suggestions: The thematic files could become even more user-friendly by checking possible amendments, recent or lying in wait, with the relevant services. It might be a good idea to refer directly to the consolidated versions of acts (if any); the researcher who needs the original acts can easily find them from there by going in the reverse direction.


Ralf Grahn

EU: Common Fisheries Policy (CFP)

The Eurpean Union’s common fisheries policy (CFP) is the point where dwindling fish stocks, oversized fishing fleets and undersized fishing revenue clash.


Eur-Lex is the web portal for legal information about the European Union. In addition to treaties, secondary legislation, preparatory acts, procedure tracking and other factual information, Eur-Lex runs a service called Thematic files.


The Thematic files collect the most relevant legal acts, preparatory acts and other acts of a specified policy area, and group them together for interested users, without further comment.


A short while ago, we signaled the new thematic file on Human rights. The latest addition is The common fisheries policy (CPT), dated 13 May 2009.




The available thematic files are found here.




Ralf Grahn

EU law basics: European Parliamentary elections 2009?

Yesterday I tried to find easily accessible information about the upcoming European Parliamentary elections, to be held in June 2009. My chosen prism was that of an EU citizen politically interested enough to find out or a student with an assigned task to present the basics of the electoral system.

In other words, I imagine that I was more diligent than the usual reader, but not rigorous enough to unearth every buried nugget. The information had to be accessible.


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What did I find?

In short, the Commission web pages refer to the newly launched portal of the European Parliament ‘European Elections ─ It’s your choice!’.

The Council links to the same web page, but if you look for ‘elections 2009’ with the general search function you end up with a lot of valuable information about elections elsewhere than in the European Union.

Clearly, among the EU institutions the directly elected European Parliament is the place to go if you want tangible information. At first appearances, it seemed right. The EP has just launched web pages aimed at informing the public (but when I retried a moment ago, the pages were down).

Anyway, yesterday there were pages with short texts about the upcoming European elections and links to pages on the elections in the individual member states.

For the more serious students there was little to find on two fundamental aspects: 1) the European level rules on the EP elections and 2) the rights and obligations of the members of the European Parliament we are about to elect.

I have little against hoopla ─ light snippets and visual entertainment ─ if public information still covers the basics. But without at least referrals to the laws, regulations and administrative decisions public information becomes mere infotainment.


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EP ─ It’s your choice!

There is no need for my criticism to blacken the EP election page makers’ day for too long. First of all, the launch of the election pages is a huge step. All the needed knowledge is readily available in-house. Now it is just a question of making some serious additional information available to the public.


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Wikipedia

In my view, the EU institutions did less well than Wikipedia in covering the basics of the European elections 2009. This said with some reservations.

I believe that I found articles in ten EU languages (out of 23 official ones and a host of regional and minority languages).


Wikipedia was all right if you read the English or the Spanish version (if I remember correctly), but in many languages the articles were mere stubs, in dire need of writing and editing.

But even the best articles were somewhat short on the harder legal basics. As a fan of Wikipedia, I hope for continued efforts, especially with regard to the ‘smaller’ languages.


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National sites

I worked through basic Google searches on the European Parliamentary elections 2009 in just a few EU languages.

There were, of course, discussions by and about candidates, but my primary interest was to see what governments and scholars had to offer on the (European) rules concerning the EP elections 2009 as well as the rights and duties of MEPs.

The United Kingdom offered clear official information about national election law, but I think that the only exact reference to an EU document was in Spanish (referring to the status of the voting rights of residents who are citizens of other EU countries). A Maltese page referred to an EU web page on the status of such intra-EU ex-pats.

The search was far from extensive, but it tends to support the view that there is a missing link between the European level and national government information.

If the European Parliament does not fill this void, who will?


Ralf Grahn

Official Journal of the European Union

Is the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU or OJ for short) in need of improvement?

It started with a blog post by Julien Frisch over at:

http://julienfrisch.blogspot.com

Julien’s article was called Decision on the legal nature of the electronic version of the Official Journal of the European Union, and it referred to an official document discussing technical options.

He went on to invite a comment from me. While my technical ‘nous’ score hovers around zilch, it led me to jot down a few practical thoughts about the Official Journal and the Eur-Lex portal from the viewpoint of a daily user and an EU citizen.

The practical message is: Improvements are needed and there are examples that it can be done.

Here is the comment on Julien’s blog:



Julien,

Thank you for your invitation to comment, although I feel more like a car driver or even passenger than an auto mechanic or assembler of cars. In other words, my experience of the Official Journal is that of a daily user, who tries to think about the needs of other EU citizens, not a technical expert.

My layman’s guess would be that in the long run we are either going to have an authentic digital Official Journal, with paper copies stored away as a back-up, which would mean that the signatures would be electronic, or the symbolic importance of signing is seen as great enough to attach the signatures to paper, but the digital OJ would be as official.

For a practitioner, the availability of the OJ (and its different language versions) on the web is crucial. Real time delivery, instead of snail mail is one evident advantage.

I already mentioned the language versions. Occasionally I use a number of them for comparison, but it would lead to storage problems and to expense to have to subscribe to several versions.

One of the problems facing historians, political scientists and lawyers is the lack of certain key pieces of legislation in currently used formats, like pdf. I hope that the EU would make available at least all the treaties since 1951 and a number of older crucial documents (like the White Book leading to the Single European Act and the intergovernmental conferences) in an accessible format and somewhere easy to find.

Even if the paper you referred to was quite technical, there were some heartening words about improved search facilities.

It is often hard to know if a certain feature is lacking or if I just lack the technical ‘nous’ to find desired items, but in my experience the Official Journal functions well if you already have the exact reference or a link leading to the exact act.

If not, the searches sometimes turn out to be laborious.

Consolidated versions of legislative acts are unofficial, but for users with practical aims legislation in force is a great help. I have found national legal portals in Sweden and Finland much easier to use in this respect, and the acts much easier to find than when I search on Eur-Lex.

These portals usually offer you options to go for the original act (or amending act), the legislation in force (continuously updated consolidated versions), the preparatory works (governemtn bills) and information about the legislative process including links to parliamentary committee documents etc., as well as secondary legislation like regulations.

All this is available with a few clicks, without time-consuming searches.

Evidently something needs to be done and could be done at EU level.

The EU could definitively learn from some of the member states, because accessible legislation for free is, in my humble opinion, a fundamental democratic right.

It is easy to see the multitude of European languages, even the 23 official EU languages, as a drain on resources. But my view is that this diversity is a European reality, and our common legislation has to be accessible to EU citizens in their own languages.