EU Legislation


Introduction

The legislative process of the EU  can seem complicated. It focuses on balancing the interests and the powers of the Member States (through the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament) with the interests of the European Commission. There are different ways in which these institutions work together to form legislation depending on the type of legislation being passed.

It is this complexity which often draws the criticism (especially from the national press in the UK and other member states) that the European lawmaking is overly bureaucratic and difficult to understand. However, the EU has lead the way in making its documentation readily and freely accessible online for all EU citizens in an attempt to make the legal process more transparent, and encouraging its member states to do the same.

Scroll through the tabs, or click on the tab which has the information you are looking for. Each of the sections headed by each tab will include links to relevant EU sites.

Treaties: Primary legislation of the EU

Primary legislation consists of Treaty provisions that establish the legal framework of the European Union. These treaties have been agreed upon democratically by each of the Member States. They set out the basic policies and operational procedures within which the EU has to operate. The original text of each of the Treaties has changed over time, being amended to reflect changes in society. Both the original and consolidated text of the Treaties are available via the EUR-Lex service at the link below.

Strategy and planning

The overall direction of European lawmaking is set by the European Council, which agrees the EU’s long-term goals within the guidelines set by the EU Treaties.

When a new European Commission is appointed every five years, a new five-year strategy document (the President of the Commission's 'Political Guidelines', which informs the annual Commission Work Programme) is prepared which will establish the priorities for the Commission’s time in office. Annual Policy Strategies are decided upon by the Commissioners within this framework.

The European Commission is the only EU institution which can propose legislation. It can propose two types of law: directives and regulations.*


* Legislation relating to the second and third ‘pillars’ of the EU (Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and Justice and Home Affairs Policy (JHA) is proposed by the European Council or directly by Member States.

Legislative Procedure

A guide to the EU’s decision making processes can be found on the Europa site at the link below:

Further information on the most common procedure of the EU, the Co-decision procedure can be found on the EU Commission web site at:


Comitology

In theory, EU legislation is passed jointly by both the Council and the Parliament. However, in a similar way to that in which the UK Civil Service drafts UK Statutory Instruments to implement UK Statutes, the Commission has powers to produce implementing legislation in accordance with Article 202 of the Treaty Establishing the European Community. The Commission does this with the assistance of a variety of committees which allow members of national governments to discuss proposals for legislation before publication.

This process is often referred to as Comitology and has been criticised for its sometime lack of transparency. Some efforts have been made to change this, and since 2006 the European Parliament has been granted extra powers to object to legislation which has gone through this process.

Secondary Legislation: Decisions, Directives and Regulations

Secondary legislation of the EU can take one of several forms:

Regulations apply directly in all Member States. A Regulation is binding in all Member States, and in effect is similar to a national law. It does not need to be implemented separately by a Member State to come into force.

Directives do not apply directly to all Member States. Directives need to be implemented separately by individual national governments into national law. A Directive is a legally binding instrument however, and will usually give outline instructions for the legislation and the time period within which it must be implemented. In the UK, implementation is usually affected by Statutory Instrument.

Decisions are normally addressed to one or more specific individuals, organisations or national governments. They may also elaborate on a general piece of legislation in relation to a specific case. They are binding upon those to whom they are addressed.

Recommendations and Opinions are not legally binding instruments, but are classed as legislation.


Preparatory Legislation

Proposed Legislation. Pre-legislative consultation documents take the form of COM DOCs (see Help on Official Publications). The formal legislative proposal could be said to be the EU equivalent to a UK Parliamentary Bill.

Consultation phase. This phase allows the various interested bodies (such as the European Parliament, Committee of the Regions, Economic and Social Committee) to study the final formal proposal and to respond. Consultation documents may be accessible via the relevant institutions' web sites, Official Journal C Series, EUR-Lex or via the institutional repositories PreLex or OEIL.

Finding EU legislation and case law

Legislation & Preparatory Legislation | Registers of Documents | Case law | Problems locating materials | Other Useful Sites

Legislation and Preparatory Legislation

The EU follows the continental model of publishing all legislation in an official gazette, the Official Journal (OJ) of the European Communities L series. The OJ and other relevant documents can be found via several freely available online services.

  • Europa
    Europa is the official portal of the European Union. It provides access to many of the sites listed below which can be used to find legislation and other official publications, as well as providing news and background information on the role of the EU.
  • EUR-Lex
    EUR-Lex provides direct free access to European Union law. It provides online access to the OJ (since 1998 in pdf Acrobat PDF document. version) as well as the treaties, legislation, case-law and legislative proposals (COM and SEC documents).
    Guides on how to use EUR-Lex can be found at:
  • PreLex
    PreLex is managed by the European Commission. It provides a point of access to the work of the various institutions involved in the decision-making process. You can use PreLex to follow the progress of legislative and non-legislative proposals from the moment they are adopted by the Commission and sent to the Council and Parliament up to the point where, in the case of legislative proposals, they are finally adopted. PreLex does not include the text of these documents itself, but will provide hyperlinks to documentation, mostly available via EUR-Lex. Introduced in the later 1990's, it has links to some material back to 1976.
  • Legislative Observatory of the European Parliament (OEIL)
    OEIL is managed by the European Parliament. Similar to PreLex it tracks legislative and non-legislative proposals, and does include some additional references to documents' histories or background material. It covers procedures dating from July 1994. It also provides access to a series of fact sheets looking at the key impacts of the EU's legislative procedures and summaries of EU legislation.

Registers of Documents

If you are unable to find the document you are looking for using any of the above databases, you should try searching one of the individual institutions Documentary Registers. These do also include some complimentary materials which may not be available elsewhere.


EU Case law

The Official Series of law reports from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is the European Court Reports. You can find a complete set of these available in print on the library shelves. Alternatively, recent content is available online:

  • Curia: European Court of Justice
    The Official web site of the European Court of Justice (as well as the General Court and the European Union Civil Service Tribunal) provides access to:
    • the full text of judgments delivered since 17 June 1997
    • the full text of certain unpublished decisions since 1 May 2004
    • Information on or summaries of cases not published in full text
    • notices for publication in the Official Journal of the European Communities relating to cases published since 1 January 2002.
  • EUR-Lex
    Access to case-law materials from November 1954 onwards.

You can also find EU legislation, case law and preparatory legislation available via Westlaw UK.


Problems finding documents online

Whilst the EU is making great steps in making as much of their work available online as they can, some documents can be difficult to locate or may not have been made available. If you are still unable to locate a document, you may need to contact the relevant institution directly to request that it is made available. Contact details can be found via Europa or each individual institution's web site


Other useful sites

Try our EU web links pages for other useful sites which may provide further information on the European Union.

You can access the Law Library Guide to Information Sources on the European Union (Available via the Law Library Guides page).

Useful journals for EU

Journals can be a valuable source of up-to-date and historic information. Legal journals may provide information on a specific topic you are interested in, summaries or discussion on key points of law or recent or important cases, commentary on legislation and proposed legislation and opinion pieces from key legal practitioners and academics.

We have summarised below details of some of the key legal journals which may be useful for your study of the EU and EU law. The links will take you to the library catalogue records for these journals, from where UWE students and staff can access these if we subscribe to them in print or electronically (you may need your network username and password to access electronic journals).

**Remember - all law journals available in print can be found on level 5 of the Frenchay campus library, except for the Journal of Common Market Studies, which can be found on level 3 of the Frenchay campus library.**

N.B. The Official Journal of the European Communities differs from other 'journals' in that it is an official gazette containing legislation and official documentation from the EU. It can be found online via EUR-Lex.

Please remember that your first port of call to see if we subscribe to a particular journal or law report is the library catalogue. This will tell you if we subscribe to the journal electronically or in print, what years our subscription covers and if you need to be aware of any missing issues etc. If you cannot remember how to search the library catalogue for a journal, there is a tutorial which can be opened from the Library Catalogue homepage (before you select your home campus).

 

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