UCB Libraries

European Union Resources

The Libraries are an official depository of the European Union (EU).

Official European Union information web sites

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.

• Europa: European Commission's principal server, offering general information on the European Union's goals and policies. Use the How to Find Information on Europa to navigate this complex web site. Highlights of Europa include:
  • EU Institutions an introductory overview of the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, the European Commission (and its Directorates General), the Court of Justice, and other institutions. Refer to the Alphabetical index for subject access to the responsibilities of the Directorates General.
  • European Union in the World an information portal on the external relations of the EU with information on foreign policies, enlargement of the EU, humanitarian aid, external trade, development policy, and external cooperation programs.
  • Euro Information on the Euro, the European Union single currency.
  • Official Documents including Green and White Papers, reports, communications, memorandums, action plans, guidelines, and work programs, the Bulletin of the European Union, and the RAPID press release database.
  • Statistical Office of the European Union (EUROSTAT) includes statistical information on the European Union.
• European Environment Agency
• European Parliament provides access to information about the activities of the parliament and other information.
• European Union: Delegation of the European Commission to the United States offers information about researching business in the European Union, the relationship between the European Union and the United States, and other information. See especially:
  • Alphabetical Index to EU Subjects a subject index to information on Web servers of the European Union.
  • The European Union: a guide for Americans
• Office for Official Publications of the European Communities:
  • EUR-Lex Access to issues of the Official Journal C and Official Journal L from 1998 to the present, Treaties, Directory of Community Legislation in Force, commission proposals (preparatory acts), and case law.
  • TED--Tenders Electronic Daily The electronic version of the Supplement to the Official Journal that contains details on public contracts of the EU and related institutions.
• CORDIS: Information on Research and Development sponsored and supported by the European Union.
• Information Society Project Office supporting and promoting public and private actions in the field of the information society with information on telecommunications and audiovisual media information technology, and related topics.
• Market Access Database - European Union this Database is a service provided by DG Trade, European Commission. It is free, interactive, easy to use and provides information about market access conditions in non-EU countries; trade flows between the EU and non-EU countries; and market access related studies referring to geographical areas, selected business sectors or relevant horizontal issues.

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 microfiche collection housed in our department. An index to that collection is available online from Statistical Universe CU. Ask for microfiche at the Government Publications desk.
  
  The Eurostat web site offers a number of key statistics online.

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 is 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. Contact PreLex to request earlier COM docs.
  • 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:
    • Legislative Observatory A database which includes status of legislation in progress, with commentary on parliamentary actions, citations to documents, and selected full text documents.
    • Sèance a Direct is the current debates on the floor of parliament. There is also an archived version from 1994-2004. Debate is first transcribed in the so-called "Rainbow" edition which may be edited and corrected before final official publication in the Official Journal of the European Communities (Annex): Debates of the European Parliament.
• Summaries of legislation includes a calendar of meetings and 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. See also the Selected Instruments of the European Union.
  • 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

• The ABC of Community Law by Dr. Klaus-Dieter Borchardt. Written for the layperson.
• Europe from A to Z a pdf version of the popular overview.
• European Parliament Fact Sheets provide "non-specialists with a general view of the process of European integration".
• Guide to European Legal Databases includes sections on the EU and individual European nations.
• Guide to Materials in Our Collection contains call numbers and locations for materials in the CU collections.
• Inside Europe--the BBC guide to the European Union. Includes a glossary of terms.
• Standards Setting in the European Union an guide to standards from the European Union.
• State Department Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs

Scope of the Collection:

We receive 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.

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 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

• European Journal of International Law
• Eurydice "database on the education systems in the European Union and in the countries of the European Economic Area."
• European Monetary Institute Includes speeches, policy papers, links to national banks, and other information.
• European Research Papers Archive. "online working paper series in the field of European integration research". Provides a gateway to :
  • European Integration Online Papers, a peer reviewed series on European Integration.
  • Harvard Jean Monnet Working Papers Series
  • Other materials.
• EU Page from University of California at Berkeley.
• Taric s.a. Centro de Documentación y Gestión de Comercio Exterior provides access to the tariff schedules of the European Union. Search by word or tariff code. Although much of the site is only available in Spanish, the site provides an English edition of the tariff database.