UCB Libraries

European Union Resources

EU Flag
The Government Information Library is an official depository of the European Union (EU).
EU Web sites Citation Manual
Scope of the CU Collection Current Awareness
Law Guides and Fact Sheets
Additional Sources Indexes and Catalogs
Statistics

Official European Union information web sites

The EU has four key institutions: the European Council, the Council of the European Union (Council), European Commission (Commission), European Parliament
(Parliament), and the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The EU currently has 27 members: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, and United Kingdom.

Statistics

We receive paper copies of many Eurostat (Statistical Office of the EU) publications. In addition, Eurostat publications are included in the Index to International Statistics collection housed in our department. An index to that collection is available online from ProQuest Statistical Insight and Statistical Dataset CU, which contains these materials full-text from 2009 forward, for prior materials ask for microfiche at the Research desk.

Law, Case Law and Proposed Legislation

ECLAS (bibliographic databases) is an essential tool for legal research. See also The ABC of Community Law by Dr. Klaus-Dieter Borchardt.

  • EUR-Lex
    A single entry point to the complete collections of EU legal texts, including CELEX, PreLex, Oeil, and other sources. Provides separate search pages for the Official Journal, Treaties, Legislation, Legislation in Preparation, Case-Law, and Documents of Public Interest. Browse or search collections by date, publication number, page number, or keyword in the full text. In addition, the site includes a glossary of terms, an overview of EU legal procedure, and descriptions of the key institutions. The following sites are included:
    • PreLex
      A database containing information on Commission proposals from 1975 to the present, with citations to COM documents, the Official Journal, the Bulletin of the European Union, documents of the European Parliament, press releases. Electronic copies of COM documents from 2000 onwards are available from EUR-Lex and PreLex.
    • Court of Justice (ECJ) and Court of First Instance of the European Communities includes institutional overview, diary, daily proceedings, and recent judgments in full text.
      • Note: The European Union has renumbered all of its founding treaties. This has implications for finding cited provisions of the treaties and locating references in EUR-Lex. See the ECJ press release which discusses renumbering of the treaties and the uniform system of citation adopted by the Court in its recent judgments. "A concordance between old and new treaty numbers, covering the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community, was published as a center insert in OJ C 122 of 1999."
    • European Parliament:
  • Summaries of legislation
    This site includes explanatory information about EU policies and programmes by topic.
  • Treaties:
    • Amsterdam: A New Treaty for Europe
      The text of the treaty of European Union in various formats, citizen's guide, and consolidated versions of earlier European Union Treaties.
    • Treaty of Nice
      "The Treaty of Nice marks a new stage in the preparations for enlargement of the European Union to include countries of central and eastern Europe, the Mediterranean and the Baltic. This Treaty, which amends the existing Treaties, will enter into force once it has been ratified by all the Member States, by parliamentary vote or referendum." Signed by heads of government on Feb. 26, 2001. The site provides the text of the treaty, background information, ratification status, and other information.
    • Treaties and Law
      This is a guide to the major treaties of the European Union.
Guides and Fact Sheets

Scope of the CU Collection

Up until 2000, we received most of the European Union's widely-distributed publications in hard copy. We receive the Official Journal (OJ), indices to the OJ, and COM documents (commission proposals, green papers, and white papers) on microfiche. Some OJ and COM material is available online. See the "Law, Case Law, and Proposed Legislation" area of this page for details.

After 1989, most publications are catalogued in Chinook the online catalog of the University Libraries.

  • COM documents:

    Print: 1969 (no. 925) to 1996 (no. 721) in print at 1000 E19 C371

    Microfiche: 1983 to 2002 at 1000 E 19 C371

    Online: 2001 to the present, Register of Commission Documents



    Citation Manual

    Use "A citation manual for European Community materials." Fordham International Law Journal, v. 19 (Feb. '96), p. 1317-34, for help in unraveling EU citations. See also the Note on citations to the treaties.

    Current Awareness

  • EU Business
    This news site includes information on EU law, business developments, finance, EU programs by industry sector, current awareness for Commission proposals, progress reports on draft legislation, country-specific information, information on doing business in EU countries, and other features.
  • EU RAPID
    Official database for press releases of the European Union.
  • European Voice Online
    A weekly newspaper that includes the top ten stories of the week and a diary of upcoming events. Additional information available with a subscription.
  • Jean Monnet Table of Contents Service
    "Provides access to the Tables of Contents, sometimes also abstracts, of journals relevant in European Integration research. Currently it covers more than 50 journals published in eight languages and 13 countries."
  • ProQuest CU
    Includes Wall Street Journal Europe in full text.
Indexes and Catalogs

  • Alphabetical Index to EU Subjects
    A subject index to information on Web servers of the European Union from the European Union: Delegation of the European Commission to the United States
  • ECLAS
    Library catalog of the Central Library of the European Commission. The catalog includes citations to articles published in periodicals, official publications, international documents, internet resources, full-text publications, and other materials from a variety of sources.
  • Indexes of Debates--European Parliament (1984-1999)
    The index contains separate lists of adopted texts, debates, subjects, index of names, and addressee for each resolution. Available as .pdf files. To interpret the index, read the "Note to the reader.

  • Furthermore, the Publications Office offers a number of online services giving free access to information on EU law (EUR-Lex), EU publications (EU Bookshop), EU public procurement (TED), and EU research and development (CORDIS).

Additional Sources of Information