European Union

EU Member States cede some of their sovereign rights to the EC. Thus, the EC is able to issue sovereign acts that have the same force as laws in individual states. CoE Decisions require unanimity, which means that every country has a power of veto. The Council of Europe is therefore designed only with international cooperation in mind. The European flag represents both the Council of Europe and the European Union to strengthen the idea of solidarity between the different organizations for a united and democratic Europe. Don’t confuse the EU/EC with the Council of Europe…

Major Council of Europe Institutions Major European Union Institutions Committee of Ministers (ministers of foreign affairs from each member state) Council of the European Union or Council of Ministers (member state representatives, usually foreign affairs ministers) European Commission (elected members) European Council (member state heads of state) Parliamentary Assembly (appointed or elected members) European Parliament (elected members) European Court of Human Rights European Court of Justice European Commission of Human Rights Economic & Social Committee Congress of Local & Regional Authorities Committee of the Regions

European Commission European Council European Parliament Court of Justice EU Law Making Institutions The Commission proposes legislation and policies, the Council approves legislation and can propose legislation of its own, and the Parliament gives its opinion on proposals, amended proposals, and addresses questions to the Commission. The Court of Justice enforces the legislation under the Treaties.

European Court of Auditors European Ombudsman European Data Protection Supervisor European Central Bank European Investment Bank –European Investment Fund European Economic and Social Committee Committee of the Regions Other major EU/EC institutions

UGA is one of the few law libraries to hold EU depository status Emory's main and law libraries share their EU depository collection

Europa – official site

Treaties (Primary Legislation) Secondary Legislation Case Law proposals, reports, press releases, etc. CommonTypes of documents

Founding Treaties –Consolidated Versions Accession Treaties Other Treaties Primary Legislation = Treaties

Regulations Directives Decisions Recommendations Secondary Legislation:

Use this to get to EUR-Lex, the EU legal database

EUR-Lex Free -access from anywhere - no password needed EUR-Lex is your portal to EU law

If you have an O.J. citation, and it’s from 1998 to present, go here

Official Journal of the European Union roughly the equivalent of the U.S. Federal Register "L" series = final texts of legislation "C" series = notices, reports, proposed legislation For many documents, the Bluebook will want you to cite to the Official Journal

Official Journal PDFs available in EUR-Lex “L” # and page #

Use this search box if you have citation to O.J. and it's 1998 or later Browse O.J. by year from 1998-current Use if O.J. volume is prior to '98 (selected full text); if not here, use the print O.J. in the Basement

EUR-Lex Simple Search Screen

Infant formulae

General EURLex “Search Terms” searching beer

EURLex biblio page O.J. cite formats available relevant dates search terms

even more EURLex biblio page legislative history citator function relevant domestic law

Index providing subject access to EU legislation

Consolidated Legislation integration of basic instruments, along with amendments and corrections, into single, non-official documents access via the Directory of Community Legislation or at

Useful summaries of EU legislation by subject

The Commission's documents are initially issued as "COM docs" while final versions of most docs end up in the O.J.

Broad subject areas Where you’ll find merger and antitrust cases

Commission page on “competition”

PreLex tracks pending legislation

The Legislative Observatory on EuroParl Like Prelex, this site is useful for tracking pending legislation

What are "white papers" What are "green papers" - documents containing proposals for EU action in a specific policy area - discussion papers published by the Commission on a specific policy area; often precede a White Paper These are issued as COM docs; we have paper thru early 2000s, also available online at and

CURIA: ECJ’s site / Note: you can’t always get the necessary citation information from the Court’s site. EUR-Lex provides citation information To get to search form

Search form on the court’s siteBut note date restriction beer

If you know the year and case number use this If you just know the year, use this

Bib notice is your friend for citation info

Includes everything you need for proper citation…(if the official cite is available).

But what if you don’t know the case number or year and just want to search for cases on a topic?

telecommunications networks

commercial set containing selected reports from the European Court of Justice, the Court of First Instance, the European Commission, and national courts and tribunals Common Market Law Reports European Community Cases commercial set containing selected reports from the ECJ and the Commission European Commercial Cases commercial set w/ selected national court decisions in English (focus on commercial dealings w/in the EU; covers competition, information exchange, professional negligence, product liability, agency and distribution Commercially-published case reports

European Commission's Delegation to the U.S. Focus is on EU-US relations

Sign up for alerts from Delegation to the U.S.

GlobaLex provides a good research guide for the EU at