European Union

European Parliament and the IGC 2000

This site was created by the European Parliament to provide information on its involvement in the Inter-Governmental Conference 2000, which paved the way for alterations to EU treaties so that new member states could join. In addition to archived news releases, it includes an overview of how EU treaties are revised and the role in this of the European Parliament. It also provides access to numerous full-text documents produced by the Parliament on this issue; they include parliamentary committee reports, resolutions, debates and speeches.

EUR-Lex: legislative procedures

The successor to PreLex, this part of the EUR-Lex website provides a database tracking the progress of proposals for EU legislation. The information provided includes details of the latest stage of the legislative or decision-making procedure, as well as previous stages, and links to associated documents such as COM documents, common positions, reports of the European Parliament, the Official Journal of the European Union and press releases. The site is available in all the official languages of the EU.

European Ombudsman

The European Ombudsman (EO) is appointed by the European Parliament to consider complaints about the administration of European Union bodies and to adjudicate in cases of maladministration; the Ombudsman also carries out own-initiative inquiries. The EO website includes a database of pending and concluded cases; case documentation can also be browsed by type of document (decision, recommendation, and so on) and year (1990s onwards).

METRO: Institute for Transnational Legal Research

Website for METRO, Maastricht University's Institute for Transnational Legal Research. Information is provided on the work and aims of the Institute with outlines of its interdisciplinary research programmes, covering matters such as human rights, women and law, constitutional law, and the legal aspects of business and enterprise. METRO specialises in transnational research dealing with issues of European and international integration and identifying common ground amongst the legal systems of European Union member states.

EUR-Lex: Preparatory documents

Part of the EU's free EUR-Lex database, the Preparatory Documents collection consists of proposed legislation, reports and other texts published in the European Commission's COM documents series, back to 1960. The documents can be searched, or browsed by year and month. The interface is in all the EU languages and most of the documents are available in multiple languages.

EUR-Lex: Consolidated Acts

Collection of consolidated European Union legislation on the free EUR-Lex website. The consolidated texts are intended as research tools; they have no legal validity. There is a dedicated search facility for consolidated texts, plus a browseable directory arranged by subject. EUR-Lex is available in all the languages of the EU member states.

Human Rights in the EU: the Charter of Fundamental Rights (2000)

'Human Rights in the EU: the Charter of Fundamental Rights', is House of Commons Library Research Paper 00/32 (March 2000). It examines the development of a human rights doctrine in the European Union and the contents of the draft charter on fundamental rights. Also considered is the relationship between this and the European Convention on Human Rights and the response from the UK government. 

European Information

A collection of annotated links to resources of interest to those researching and studying the European Union and to research sponsored by the European Community. The site was created in 2010 by the European Documentation Centre at the University of Exeter's Law Library. The site contains links concerning: European Documentation Centres; library catalogues; bibliographies; web searching; EU institutions; EU official publications; document collections, e.g.

European Union

EU research guide by Jim Church from University of California Berkeley Library. Covers key databases, reference books, EU institutions, legislation, justice, news, statistics and other topics. 

Council of the European Union: agreements database

This database, provided by the Council of the European Union, gives details of international agreements concluded between the EU and non-EU countries or organisations such as UN agencies; it also includes agreements between EU member states. The database covers all agreements since 1989, plus older agreements which are still in force and selected old agreements which are no longer in force. Ratification details and other status information are given. Official Journal references are provided, with links either to the full text or the EUR-Lex database's Official Journal search screen.

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