Collections of documents

Treaties

The EU treaties are binding agreements between EU countries. They set out the EU's objectives, the rules governing the EU institutions, how decisions are made, and the relationship between the EU and its member countries. Every action taken by the EU is based on the treaties.

The treaties are amended to make the EU more efficient and transparent, prepare for new member countries and introduce new areas of cooperation.

EUR-Lex contains the founding, amending and accession treaties, plus some protocols.

EU Legal acts

This collection comprises:

• binding legal instruments (regulations, directives and decisions);
• non-binding instruments (resolutions, opinions);
• other instruments (the EU institutions' internal regulations, EU action programmes, etc.).

Consolidated texts

Consolidation means incorporating successive amendments and corrigenda into a legal act. This helps make EU law more accessible. Legal texts published in different issues of the EU Official Journal are combined as a 'consolidated family' in one easy-to-read document.

Consolidated texts are intended for use as documentation tools. The institutions do not assume liability for their content, and they have no legal value.

EFTA documents

This collection covers the full text of acts adopted by the EFTA institutions (Surveillance Authority, Standing Committee, Court) and published in the Official Journal from 1994 onwards.

EU Preparatory documents

These are the documents produced at the various stages of the EU legislative and budgetary process.

They include:

• Commission legislative proposals;
• Council common positions;
• European Parliament legislative and budgetary resolutions and initiatives;
• European Economic and Social Committee opinions;
• European Committee of the Regions opinions.

EU case-law

This collection comprises case-law from the EU Court of Justice, including:

• Court judgments and orders;
• Opinions and views of Advocates General;
• Court opinions on draft agreements between the EU and non-EU countries or international organisations.

International agreements

This collection covers all the instruments produced by the EU in the exercise of its international responsibilities:

• agreements concluded by the EU with non-EU countries or international organisations in their specific areas of responsibility;
• agreements concluded jointly by the EU countries and the EU in areas of shared responsibility ('mixed type' agreements);
• decisions taken by joint committees set up under an international agreement to administer it and comprising representatives of the signatories.

N-lex

N-lex is not a collection. Rather, it is a standardised set of search criteria (in all official EU languages) for retrieving national legislation from all EU countries. Laws are retrieved directly from the national databases.

National transposition measures

These are the measures taken by the EU countries to enact EU laws (mostly directives), incorporating them into national law. The national legal provisions are shown as communicated by the EU countries concerned.

National case-law

This collection provides references to national case-law from:

• EU countries;
• some non-EU countries;
• the EFTA Court;
• the European Court of Human Rights.

The title of the case is available in the original language of the judgment only; keywords are in French and English.

Bibliographical information and search functionalities are available in all EU official languages.

JURE - Jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of judgements in civil and commercial matters

The JURE collection contains relevant judgements in civil and commercial matters delivered by courts in contracting states (EU countries and, if applicable, Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland) and the EU Court of Justice under the Brussels and Lugano conventions.

The judgements are available in their original language only. There is also a summary of each judgment in English, French and German (and in the original language, if the country in question provides one).

Lawmaking procedures

You can follow the life cycle of a legislative proposal from the moment it is launched until the final law is adopted. A timeline gives a visual representation of the procedure. All interventions by the institutions and bodies involved in the decision-making process are represented.

The timeline enables you to access:

• detailed information about each institution's decisions and how they were taken;
• the services and departments involved;
• the legal basis of the act, etc..