European Documentation Centre - EDC

The core mission of the European Personnel and Selection Office (EPSO) is to meet the EU institutions’ recruitment needs by selecting candidates through generalist and specialist competitions. EPSO acts as a matchmaker between the EU institutions and high performing professionals and graduates.

Epso

Information on where to find documents held by the European Commission and other institutions, including legislative information, official documents, and meeting minutes and agendas.

How to access Commission documents

Regardless of your work or how you spend your free time, as an EU citizen your life is affected by the European Union. The website “What Europe does for me” offers a wide selection of brief and easy-to-read information from the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS). 

What Europe does for mer

The European Ombudsman is an independent and impartial body that holds the EU’s institutions and agencies to account, and promotes good administration. The Ombudsman helps people, businesses, and organisations facing problems with the EU’s administration by investigating complaints about maladministration by EU institutions and bodies, as well as by proactively looking into broader systemic issues.

European Ombudsman

Official website of the European Union with information about the EU and links to further information.

europa.eu

Search, browse or download information from the Official Directory of the European Union.

EU:s Who is who?

According to the transparency rules as set out in the Lisbon Treaty, EU institutions work as openly and as closely as possible to citizens. Ministers at the Council legislate in public and citizens have a right to request access to Council documents.

The rules of procedure of the Council and the European Council set out basic rules for meetings, including voting rules, which sessions should be public and when documents should be published.

Transparency and access to documents

General information about the European Union at the website of the Swedish Riksdag. Find out about the interaction between the EU and Swedish agencies and bodies:

How the EU works

Help and advice for EU nationals and their family, for example regarding moving, living, studying, working, shopping and traveling abroad:

Help and advice for EU nationals and their family

Practical guide to doing business in Europe:

Practical guide to doing business in Europe

ABC of EU Law by Professor Klaus-Dieter Borchardt investigates the European project as a legal system and its development. A standard work on the subject:

ABC of EU Law

A brochure with basic information about the EU from the European Commission:

The European Union - What it is and what it does

A publication about the EU by Pascal Fontaine, an expert on European affairs. Published by the European Commission:

Europe in 12 lessons

How the EU performs in various fields:

Actions by topic 

An EU treaty is a binding agreement between the member states. A treaty establishes the goals of the EU, what rules apply to EU institutions, how decisions are taken, and the relations between the EU and its member states. The European Union can only take measures that are supported by a treaty.

Treaties

The Official Journal of the European Union is the official publication (gazette) for EU legal acts, other acts and official information from EU institutions, bodies, offices and agencies:

A Green Paper is a document published by the European Commission with the purpose of stimulating discussion on a specific issue. Interested parties (organisations, citizens) are invited to consultations and debates on the proposals presented in the Green Paper. Sometimes, law proposals are based on a Green Paper. Such as proposal is subsequently presented in a White Paper:

Green Papers

Documents used to prepare EU legislation, produced during the various stages of the legislative and budgetary process:

Prepatory documents

Find consolidated versions of European Union acts that give the view of the act as applicable at a specific point in time:

Find information about procedures which lead to the adoption of legal acts by the European institutions. EUR-Lex gives you access to the procedure stages and to related documents.:

Lawmaking procedures

The EUR-Lex directory of EU legislation currently in force. Search according to subject area to find EU legislation:

Summaries of EU legislation are short, easy-to-understand explanations of the main legal acts passed by the EU – intended for a general, non-specialist audience.
Most cover the main types of legislation passed by the EU: directives, regulations and decisions. But some cover other documents, such as international agreements:

Summaries of EU legislation

White papers from the Commission are documents with proposals within a specific area. In some cases, a white paper has been preceded by a green paper with the purpose to initiate consultations at the EU level. If the white book is received positively, the Council can initiate a plan of action regarding the area in question:

White Papers

Legal usage since 17 June, 1997. Cases from the Court of Justice of the European Union etc:

Curia

Referencing case law is based on ECLI:

Method for citing case-law

Case law from the Court of Justice:

EU case-law

References and commentaries to doctrine regarding cases notified by the court, the Tribunal and the Civil Service Tribunal:

Annotation of judgments

Regulations and decisions become binding automatically throughout the EU on their date of application. Directives on the other hand, must be incorporated by EU countries into their national legislation. Each directive contains a deadline by which EU countries must incorporate its provisions into their national legislation and inform the Commission to that effect:

Implementing EU law

The member states’ representatives in the Council and the EU parliament are jointly responsible for accepting EU legislation. Usually, both institutions are equal partners as law makers but in some cases other procedures can apply:

Legislative powers

Legislative Observatory

A CELEX number is a unique identifier assigned to a document. It is independent of the language of the document. Most documents on EUR-Lex are assigned a CELEX number:

CELEX numbers

You can use this table to build CELEX numbers. The Celex number is the unique identifier of each document in EUR-Lex, regardless of language:

Types of documents in EUR-Lex

Eurobarometer is the polling instrument used by the European Commission, the European Parliament and other EU institutions and agencies to monitor regularly the state of public opinion in Europe on issues related to the European Union as well as attitudes on subjects of political or social nature. Eurobarometer provides quality and relevant data for experts in public opinion, researchers, media and the public:

Eurobarometer

Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union:

Eurostat

Statistics Sweden:

SCB

Statistical databases published by the OECD (the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) in a wide spectrum of subjects: economics, technology, taxing, commerce, education, employment, demographics, energy, and the environment. All content can be accessed online but all content is not available for downloading:

OECD iLibrary Statistics

The World Bank Open Data provides access to global development data and is designed to make data from the World Bank easy to locate, download and use. Searchable by indicators, countries and subjects:

World Bank Open Data

European Union statistics from the World Bank

The World Trade Organization (WTO) handles global agreements on trade. This web portal provides access to a selection of key databases with statistics and information about various WTO measures relating to international trade:

The European Unionen and the WTO