There are two possibilities while the various document formats (PDF, html, TIFF, MS WORD, etc.) are still being uploaded into the system:

• clicking on the second option entitled ‘Bibliographic notice + text (bilingual display)’ will take you straight to the text.
• select the ‘Bibliographic notice’ option, then on the following screen check ‘Text’ and click on ‘Go’ to display the text. The text will appear at the bottom of the screen, so it is important to scroll down.

Both options arrive at the screen offering the choice of displaying the document simultaneously in two languages. This feature corresponds to the double visualisation html which you may have known in CELEX.

EUR-Lex holds documents in several formats: doc, html, PDF, TIFF.

PDFs and TIFFs allow for the presentation of images, tables and graphics.

For technical reasons, information in the form of images, tables or graphics is not included in documents in html. From 1998, the Official Journal of the European Union and COM documents are also available in PDF, which include the complete text.

EUR-Lex contains the legal texts of the EU institutions published in the Official Journal of the European Union and the European Court Reports , as well as certain collections of documents disseminated by the institutions.

Certain old texts published in the Official Journal are not in EUR-Lex.

1.4. Where can I obtain printed versions of the texts published on EUR-Lex?

EU bookshop is an online bookshop giving access to publications from the EU institutions, agencies and other bodies. In addition to the online bookshop, this service will offer an online catalogue and archive of all EU publications. EU bookshop will allow users to search for EU publications, order them and, where possible, download copies.

Access to the consolidated legislation is either:

• via the ‘Simple search’ page. Simply select ‘consolidated text’ under the ‘search by document number’;
• via the Directory of Community legislation in force . Simply choose the ‘Legislation in force’ menu, then ‘Directory of Community legislation’ and select the area that you are interested in. If the original act has been consolidated, a link to the consolidated version is displayed. If the act has been the object of several amendments, the various consolidated versions are also available;
• direct access to the consolidated texts is also possible by using the CELEX number: in the ‘Simple search’ page choose ‘search by CELEX number’, type 0 (zero) + year (4 digits) + R (for regulation), L (for directive) or D (for decision), followed by the number of the act (4 digits).

For example, to obtain the consolidated version of Regulation No 1 of the Council of 1958, enter 01958R0001.

Access to the COM documents by chronological lists is not yet completely finalised in the new system.

If you cannot find a specific document,

• select the 'Preparatory acts' menu, then 'COM documents' and use the 'Direct access to documents' search box,
• or use 'Simple search' (search by natural number).

1.7. I am looking for the documents of public interest previously available on EUR-Lex. Where can I find them?

Documents of public interest are documents in which the European Commission expresses its point of view on a question of general interest for the European Community. These documents are published as COM documents. There are two ways of accessing them from the home page:

• select the 'Preparatory acts' collection, then click on 'COM documents';
• select 'Simple search', then 'Preparatory acts' category and limit your search to 'Commission communications'.

We plan to offer a specific 'Documents of public interest' collection in the future.

1.8. I am looking for a recent document, but I cannot find it in EUR-Lex. How often is the database updated?

EUR-Lex is updated daily.

The Official Journal is uploaded in PDF early the same morning as its publication on paper.

Contents are then processed for their individual inclusion in the database which involves detailed legal and bibliographic analysis. Even though individual documents can be loaded the very same day of publication accompanied with a limited number of analytical data (title, publication reference), the complete set of analytical data is loaded within three working days. This explains why there is a short time lapse between the appearance of the Official Journal itself and the subsequent availability of the individual acts for searching.

Other documents are also subject to variations in the frequency of their inclusion in the legal database due to their different sources.

2.1. What documents can be found in EUR-Lex?

The database covers texts published in the Official Journal of the European Union L (Legislation) and C (Information and notices), including legislation, international agreements, preparatory acts and parliamentary questions.

Under case-law one can find the judgments of the European Court of Justice and of the Court of First Instance, as well as the opinions of the Advocates-General, as published in the European Court Reports and as provisional texts disseminated earlier by the Court of Justice. Also available are the Commission documents (the COM series and a selection of the SEC series), the collection of consolidated legislative texts and the texts of the Treaties of the European Communities and later the European Union.

2.2. How many documents are there in EUR-Lex?

The database covers documents from the very beginning of the European cooperation, from the conclusion of the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 and the European Economic Community and Euratom in 1957 onwards. It includes some 400000 references in several languages, 1400000 texts in total. An average of 15000 documents are added each year.

The linguistic coverage is greater for the four official languages of the founding Member States, that is Dutch, French, German and Italian. For the other languages you will find translations of the legislation in force at the time of the accession of the country in question and the texts adopted after this date. Some of the texts, particularly the oldest, are therefore not available in the languages that were added during the later accessions: English and Danish; Greek; Spanish and Portuguese; Finnish and Swedish; and more recently Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Slovak and Slovene.

The Constitution and certain Treaties have also been published in Irish. These texts are available on the site in the 'Treaties' collection.

Provisional versions of legislative texts in Bulgarian and Romanian will progressively be uploaded in EUR-Lex during the coming months.

The site offers access to:

The database is managed by the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities which acts in the name of all the institutions. The institutions participate regularly in the developments of the database through different committees and working parties. A working party of the Council, to which also delegates of the Member States take part, is regularly informed about the management and the developments of the database.

Access to the site is entirely free of charge.

We are currently developing a system that will allow users to personalise their profile and benefit from certain special services. At that time users will need to register, but access to the site will remain free.

We hope to be able to open this service in early 2006.