View source for EUR-Lex

{{Short description|Official website of EU Law and documents}}
{{Infobox website
| name             = EUR-Lex website
| logo             = [[File:EUR-Lex logo.svg|200px|frameless|Eur-Lex logo]]
| logo_caption     = Access to European Union law
| screenshot       = Eur-lex screenshot.png{{!}}border
| screenshot_alt   = Main page of the EUR-Lex
| caption          = Screenshot of EUR-Lex's portal
| collapsible      = yes
| url              = {{URL|https://eur-lex.europa.eu/}}
| commercial       = No
| type             = [[public services|Public service]] website <br>and&nbsp;EU&nbsp;legal&nbsp;documents
| registration     = Not required
| language         = [[Languages of the European Union|Official languages of the EU]]
| owner            = {{Flag|European Union}}
| content_license  = Open
| author           = [[Publications Office (European Union)|Publications Office of the EU]]
| launch_date      = 2001
}}

'''EUR-Lex''' is the official [[online database]] of [[European Union law]] and other public documents of the [[European Union]] (EU), published in 24 official [[Languages of the European Union|languages of the EU]]. The [[Official Journal of the European Union|Official Journal]] (OJ) of the European Union is also published on EUR-Lex. Users can access EUR-Lex free of charge and also register for a free account, which offers extra features.

== History ==
[[Data processing]] of legal texts at the [[European Commission]] started way back in the 1960s, still using [[Punched card|punch cards]] at the time. A system was being developed to capture relationships between documents and analyse them to extract and re-use [[metadata]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://bookshop.europa.eu/en/25-years-of-european-law-online-deluxe-edition--pbOA7606135/|title=25 years of European law online|publisher=Publications office of the European Union|access-date=23 August 2016}}</ref> but also to make retrieval easier.

Through the years, the system and its scope grew as the Commission started collaborating with other institutions of the European Union and as the Union started [[Enlargement of the European Union|expanding]]. It was named '''CELEX''' ({{Langx|la|Communitatis Europae Lex|label=none|italic=unset}}) and soon became a well-used interinstitutional tool.{{citation needed|date=April 2025}}

While initially used only internally, the system went through various degrees of availability to the public, including offering content under commercial [[License|licences]] via private [[Company|companies]]. Finally, in 1997 a web version was launched and named EUR-Lex, hosted by the [[Publications Office of the European Union]].{{citation needed|date=April 2025}}

The EUR-Lex [[website]] was opened to the public in 2001, while CELEX still existed as a separate [[database]] until the end of 2004. Subsequently, steps were undertaken to merge the two services and to make them completely free of charge.{{citation needed|date=April 2025}}

With the accession of new countries to the European Union and advancements in web and data-processing technologies, the system needed to be improved. A new version was launched in 2004. In 2014 the website saw another major overhaul, including a new database called "CELLAR".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://publications.europa.eu/documents/2050822/0/reuse-workshop-20160321_v1.pdf/|title=CELLAR, OPEN DATA, LINKED OPEN DATA EU Open Data Portal – presentation|access-date=23 August 2016}}</ref> "CELLAR" stores in a single place all metadata and [[digital content]] managed by the Publications Office in a harmonized and standardized way.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.w3.org/International/multilingualweb/luxembourg/slides/41-schmitz.pdf|title=Common Access to EU Information based on semantic technology (presentation)|access-date=19 August 2016}}</ref>

An [[parallel text|aligned parallel]] [[text corpus|corpus]] consisting of 3.9 million EUR-Lex documents in 24 languages, ranging in size from 37 million [[lexical token|tokens]] for [[Irish language|Irish]] to 840 million tokens for [[English language|English]], was produced in 2016 and made available in the [[Sketch Engine]]. Unannotated data is provided to researchers under a [[Creative Commons license]]. At the time of publication, the authors considered the EUR-Lex Corpus the largest parallel corpus built from European language resources, more suitable for linguistically motivated searches than the EUR-Lex official website.<ref>{{cite conference|last1=Baisa|first1=Vít|last2=Michelfeit|first2=Jan|last3=Medveď|first3=Marek|last4=Jakubíček|first4=Miloš|title=European Union Language Resources in Sketch Engine|book-title=The Proceedings of tenth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC’16)|year=2016|url=https://www.sketchengine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/eur_lex_2016.pdf|publisher=European Language Resources Association (ELRA)|location=Portorož, Slovenia|access-date=2017-11-21|archive-date=2017-12-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201042108/https://www.sketchengine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/eur_lex_2016.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=EUR-Lex Corpus|url=https://www.sketchengine.co.uk/eurlex-corpus/|website=Sketch Engine|date=2 June 2016|publisher=Lexical Computing CZ s.r.o.|access-date=21 November 2017|archive-date=1 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201042105/https://www.sketchengine.co.uk/eurlex-corpus/|url-status=live}}</ref>

== Content ==
On EUR-Lex users can access documents in the official EU languages. Language coverage depends on the date of the accession of a country to the EU. All EU law in force on the date of the accession of a new Member State is available in the language of the acceding country as are all documents adopted after this date. Documents [[repeal]]ed or expired before the date of accession are not available in the language of the acceding country.{{citation needed|date=April 2025}}

Irish has been an official EU language since 1 January 2007. However, for practical reasons and on a transitional basis, the institutions of the Union have been exempted from the obligation to draft or translate all acts, including judgments of the Court of Justice, in the Irish language. The derogation was reviewed every five years until [[Status of the Irish language#European Union|Irish received full status]] as a working language of the EU joining the other 23 official languages of the EU on 1 January 2022.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/e3150-the-irish-language-gains-full-official-and-working-status-in-the-european-union/|title=The Irish language gains full official and working status in the European Union|date=December 31, 2021|website=www.gov.ie}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://commission.europa.eu/news/irish-now-same-level-other-official-eu-languages-2022-01-03_en|title=Irish is now at the same level as the other official EU languages - European Commission|website=commission.europa.eu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/irish-gains-full-official-and-working-status-in-the-eu-1.4767303|title=Irish gains full official and working status in the EU|website=The Irish Times|access-date=2024-07-28|archive-date=2024-07-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240728232413/https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/irish-gains-full-official-and-working-status-in-the-eu-1.4767303|url-status=live}}</ref>{{Update inline|date=May 2024}} It is gradually reduced according to a timetable annexed to Council Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2015/2264.<ref>{{CELEX|32015R2264|text=Council Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2015/2264 of 3 December 2015 extending and phasing out the temporary derogation measures from Regulation No 1 of 15 April 1958 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community and Regulation No 1 of 15 April 1958 determining the languages to be used by the European Atomic Energy Community introduced by Regulation (EC) No 920/2005}}</ref>

While each document (and each language version) is an individual part of the database, the content is grouped into sectors. There are currently 12 sectors, each represented by a number or a letter:<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://eur-lex.europa.eu/content/tools/TableOfSectors/types_of_documents_in_eurlex.html|title=Types of documents in EUR-Lex|access-date=2023-04-04|archive-date=2022-03-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220318222602/https://eur-lex.europa.eu/content/tools/TableOfSectors/types_of_documents_in_eurlex.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
* 1 - Treaties
* 2 – International agreements
* 3 – Legal acts
* 4 – Complementary legislation
* 5 – Preparatory documents	
* 6 – Case-law	
* 7 – National transposition measures	
* 8 – References to national case-law concerning EU law
* 9 – Parliamentary questions	
* 0 – Consolidated texts	
* C – Other documents published in the Official Journal C series	
* E – [[European Free Trade Association|EFTA]] documents

=== Official Journal of the European Union ===
In 1998 the Official Journal of the European Union (OJ) started being published online, on EUR-Lex. From 1 July 2013, the digital version of the Official Journal bears legal value instead of the paper version, which is now [[Print on demand|printed on demand]] only. The e-OJ has an advanced [[electronic signature]] which guarantees its authenticity, integrity and inalterability.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://eur-lex.europa.eu/content/oj/e-oj.html|title=About the electronic edition of the Official Journal|access-date=18 August 2016|archive-date=22 September 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160922105857/http://eur-lex.europa.eu/content/oj/e-oj.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

All the editions of the OJ are available on EUR-Lex, dating back to 1952, when they were available in [[French language|French]], [[Italian language|Italian]], [[Dutch language|Dutch]] and [[German language|German]]. They can be easily retrieved via a search or by browsing.{{citation needed|date=April 2025}}

=== EU law ===
EUR-Lex contains all EU law (sectors 3 and 4), which can be retrieved by [[browsing]] or using the search options. The main types of acts under this heading are [[EU treaties]] (sector 1), [[EU directive|directives]], [[EU regulation|regulations]], [[Decision (European Union)|decisions]] as well as consolidated legislation (sector 0), etc. Consolidation is the integration of a basic legal act and all of its successive [[amendment]]s and [[Erratum|corrigenda]] into one easy-to-read document. Consolidated texts are intended for use as reference and have no legal value.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://eur-lex.europa.eu/content/legis/avis_consolidation.html|title=About consolidation|access-date=19 August 2016|archive-date=28 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160828002914/http://eur-lex.europa.eu/content/legis/avis_consolidation.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Acts which require [[Transposition (law)|transposition]] are published with a list of links to information about the national [[Implementation#Political science|implementing measures]] (sector 7).

=== Preparatory documents and lawmaking procedures ===
The database contains also documents preceding legal acts, such as legislative proposals, reports, [[EU green paper|green]] and [[white paper]]s, etc. (sector 5). Some proposals never make it past the preparatory stage, but are still available for consultation.

Each [[European Union legislative procedure|legislative procedure]] is presented in EUR-Lex with a timeline and a list of events and pertaining documents. Procedures can be accessed via the search or from one of the procedure documents.{{citation needed|date=April 2025}}

=== EU case-law ===
These documents, authored by the [[Court of Justice of the European Union]], form sector 6 and include, inter alia, [[Judgment (law)|judgments]], orders, rulings and opinions of the [[European Court of Justice#Advocates General|Advocates General]].

=== Other documents ===
EUR-Lex stores also international agreements (sector 2), parliamentary questions (sector 9), [[EFTA]] acts, which include also acts by the [[EFTA Court]] and by the [[European Free Trade Association Surveillance Authority|EFTA Surveillance Authority]] (sector E); judgments delivered by courts in contracting states and the EU Court of Justice under the [[Brussels Regime]];<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://eur-lex.europa.eu/collection/n-law/jure.html|title=JURE – Jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters|access-date=2016-08-18|archive-date=2016-09-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160922103630/http://eur-lex.europa.eu/collection/n-law/jure.html|url-status=live}}</ref> references to national case law concerning EU law (sector 8) and other public documents.

== CELEX number and other identifiers ==
=== CELEX number ===
While EU documents are numbered in different ways, each of them is assigned a unique, language independent [[identifier]], a CELEX number.

This identifier is composed of the number of the sector, then 4 digits for the year, then one or two letters for the type of document and finally 2-4 digits for the number of the document.<ref name="help">{{Cite web|url=https://eur-lex.europa.eu/content/help.html#help9|title=EUR-Lex - Help pages|access-date=2023-04-04|archive-date=2023-04-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404021654/https://eur-lex.europa.eu/content/help.html#help9|url-status=live}}</ref> For example, the CELEX number of the [[Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive]] is 32012L0019 (3 is the sector, legislation; 2012 is the year of publication in the OJ; L represents EU directives and 0019 is the number under which the directives was published in the OJ).

=== ECLI ===
[[European Case Law Identifier|The European Case Law Identifier]] (ECLI) was introduced by the council, which concluded that for "identification of judicial decisions a standard identifier should be used which is recognisable, readable and understandable by both humans and computers".<ref>{{CELEX|52011XG0429(01)|text=Council conclusions inviting the introduction of the European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) and a minimum set of uniform metadata for case law}}</ref> Documents can be retrieved using ECLI also on EUR-Lex.

=== ELI ===
EUR-Lex offers also the possibility to retrieve documents by their [[European Legislation Identifier]] introduced with Council Conclusions of 10 October 2012 (2012/C 325/02).<ref>{{CELEX|52012XG1026(01)|text=Council conclusions inviting the introduction of the European Legislation Identifier (ELI)}}</ref>

== Functionalities ==

=== Search ===

Documents can be retrieved via a [[Database search engine|search engine]] (IDOL<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://portaljuridic.gencat.cat/web/.content/08_-_altres/memoria_final_luxemburg_versio_difusio.pdf|title=Access to legislation in force: a question of democracy. A view from a European Union Region: Catalonia. (presentation)|access-date=18 August 2016|archive-date=26 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160826003744/http://portaljuridic.gencat.cat/web/.content/08_-_altres/memoria_final_luxemburg_versio_difusio.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> by [[HP Autonomy]]) using various search forms. It is possible to search by document references, dates, text and a multitude of metadata. Registered users have the option of using the expert search and performing searches using [[Boolean algebra#Basic operations|Boolean operators]].

=== Text display and formats ===
Texts and their metadata can be retrieved, displayed and [[download]]ed in various formats ([[HTML|html]], [[Portable Document Format|pdf]], [[XML|xml]]). For [[wikt:simultaneous|simultaneous]] work with several language versions, users can use the [[Multilingualism|multilingual]] display, which is especially useful for [[translation]] and [[linguistics]].{{citation needed|date=April 2025}}

=== Saved documents and searches ===
Registered users can save documents and searches in their EUR-Lex account, create search and print profiles, and set their own [[RSS|RSS feeds]] based on saved searches.<ref name="help"/>

=== Preferences ===
Registered users have access to a plethora of settings with which they can [[Personalization|customise]] their experience on the website.
{| class="wikitable"
|+'''Overview of functionalities'''
|'''Functionality'''
|'''Non-registered users'''
|'''Registered users'''
|-
|Simple and advanced search
|YES
|YES
|-
|Expert search (Boolean operators, more options)
|NO
|YES
|-
|Saved documents and searches
|NO
|YES

(stored in the account)
|-
|Website, search, export and print preferences
|NO
|YES
|-
|RSS feeds
|YES

(only predefined)
|YES

(custom made based on saved searches)
|}

== Access to national law of EU member states (N-Lex) ==
N-Lex is a [[Web portal|common access point]] to [[Law|national law]] of each country of European Union. It is an [[User interface|interface]] between users and databases of national legislation.

== See also ==
{{Portal|European Union}}
* [[Caselex]]
* [[EudraLex]]
* [[European Documentation Centre]]
* [[European Union directive]]
* [[EuroVoc]]
* [[List of European Union directives]]
* [[Treaties of the European Union]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{official website|https://eur-lex.europa.eu/homepage.html}} – Eur-Lex
* [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/oj/direct-access.html Official Journal of the European Union]
* [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/content/tools/TableOfSectors/types_of_documents_in_eurlex.html Types of documents in Eur-Lex]
* [https://n-lex.europa.eu/n-lex/ N-Lex website]

{{Legislation of the European Union}}

[[Category:European Union law]]
[[Category:Internet and the European Union]]