Europa is the official website of the European Union with documents in all the languages of the EU.
You can use this site to search and browse to various official publications produced by the EU bodies including the following:
If you need to know about the EU setup and the role each body plays, take a look online for an explanation of the role each of the EU institutions plays.
Europa is a huge site so if you are working with EU related official publications it is recommended you take some time to explore the site and familiarise yourself with the available content.
The Documents and Publications tab will link you through to all official EU publications, including official documents, reports and studies, statistics, data etc.
Some of the other major areas of the site that are useful for researchers are highlighted below.
The European Union: A guide to researching the law of the EU from the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies is a good resource to use if you aer unfamiliar wit EU information sources.
EUR-Lex provides free access, in the 24 official EU languages, to:
Online help is available to help you make the most of this service. Use the EU Law introductory pages for an overview of the available materials.
A vast amount of information about the work of the EU Parliament is available online via the European Parliament website but it can be difficult to search effectively for detailed research. The Committees section is the best route in to view documentation relating to issues before Parliament.. You can view Committee agendas and all accompanying documentation. You can also search across the committee documentation.
The Legislative Observatory allows users to follow the decision-making process for all EU legislative and non-legislative procedures going through the European Parliament.
Eurostat s the statistical office of the European Union (EU). It provides the EU with statistics at European level to enable comparisons between countries and regions. It consolidates the national statistics data collected by the statistical authorities of the EU member states and ensures they are comparable, using harmonized methodology. The database includes datasets and online versions of publications, as well as press releases and tables of data. Statistics Explained is a guide to to the Eurostat statistics, presenting statistical topics in an user friendly, ‘Wikipedia-like’ user format.
The EU Bookshop is an online bookshop, library and archive of publications dating back to 1952. It contains over 110,000 titles and 235,000 corresponding electronic versions (PDFs, e-books) in more than 50 languages, including the 24 official languages of the EU. To obtain a hardcopy of certain titles, you may have to pay a small fee. PDF and e-book versions are free of charge.
The vast majority of titles on EU Bookshop are authored by EU institutions such as the European Commission, European Parliament, Council of the EU, EU agencies and other bodies. Some titles are produced jointly with partner publishers and/or other international organisations. Others are written by individuals whose work is endorsed by the institution they work for. You can search or browse to find relevant information
The European Union Open Data Portal is the single point of access to a growing range of data from the institutions and other bodies of the European Union (EU). Data are free for you to use and reuse for commercial or non-commercial purposes.
By providing easy and free access to data, the portal aims to promote their innovative use and unleash their economic potential. It also aims to help foster the transparency and the accountability of the institutions and other bodies of the EU.