Academic handbook to be basis for EU civil code?

Academic researchers are finalising a big European Commission-funded legal handbook containing the core principles of EU member states' private law, according to a story in today's 'EU Observer'. For more details, go to http://euobserver.com/9/24979/?rk=1

Cabinet Office memoranda now available online

The UK Cabinet Office prepares its own explanatory memoranda to proposed EU legislation. Not to be confused with the memoranda which appear in the actual Commission proposals, these are brief summaries, without Eurospeak, of what the proposals are about. You can search the site by keyword, or by Council or Commission document number. So, most probably, you might search for the COM document number of the original Commission proposal.

Take a look at
http://europeanmemorandum.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/

Consultation on access to documents

The Commission are currently undertaking a consultation on access to documents with a view to reviewing rules and procedures. This is an opportunity to express our views which we, as informational professionals, should take advantage of. Have you had experiences of difficulty getting hold of an EU document? Have you found one or more of the document registers unsatisfactory? Should there be one single register rather than one for each institution? I would urge EUDUG members to read the consultation document and think about submitting a response. It may also be appropriate for EUDUG to submit a response on behalf of members, so please do share your views with us.

The consultaion document is COM (2007) 185 and the consultation period runs until mid-July.

Treaties database

A new database created by the Commission provides summaries and full texts of all bilateral and multilateral treaties or agreements concluded by the European Community, the European Atomic Energy Community and the former European Coal and Steel Community, plus those concluded under the Treaty on European Union. Agreements signed but not yet in force are included.
Treaties Office Database

This post submitted with thanks to the Europan Information Association (www.eia.org.uk)

Update for ‘SCADPlus’

The main menu of the ‘Summaries of Legislation’ pages - previously known as SCADPlus - has been given a makeover. The new menu offers summaries of legislation across 32 main sections, plus two highlighted ‘Key document’ topics - ‘Climate Change’ and ‘Growth and Jobs’ (note that the substantive content of the pages does not appear to have been updated).

Summaries of Legislation website

This post submitted with thanks to the European Information Association (www.eia.org.uk)

IPEX - Interparliamentary EU Information Exchange

Need access to documents about other member states' scrutiny of EU proposals? The IPEX database has been launched as a result of a recommendation of the Conference of the Speakers of the European Union Parliaments in Rome in 2000. National parliaments have their own scrutiny procedures for EU legislation. IPEX is designed to give a platform for the electronic exchange of EU-related information between national parliaments. An IPEX dossier contains all the related documents from the EU institutions about a specific procedure as well as documents resulting from the scrutiny by the national parliaments of the member states. You can see at a glance from the symbols how far the process has reached in different countries. IPEX is freely available at http://www.ipex.eu/ipex/cms/home/pid. At the moment you need to know the document number or simply browse the site as the search function is not working, but a new advanced search facility should be available shortly which will make this a really useful source.

New Commission catalogue launched

On 9 February the Commission announced the launch of the new version of their online catalogue, ECLAS. They are seeking feedback on it so let's give it a good examination. If you feed back to them, please mention that you're a EUDUG members and we can raise the profile of the group as a professional group they might consult when developing new products.


http://ec.europa.eu/eclas/