Researching the European Union

The most recent issue of the UK-based information industry newsletter FreePint has an article by London librarian Adrian Janes on Finding Facts: The European Union after 50 Years:

"The European Union (EU) marks its 50th anniversary in March 2007. In this time it has grown from six to 27 Member States, gradually expanded the range of its activities and become a highly complex organisation. This article attempts to sketch some of the background to the EU's development, point out the functions of some of the key institutions and above all indicate useful sources of information".

Earlier Library Boy posts about European legal information sources include:

• EU Law Blog (March 6, 2006): "Anonymously written, it is a 'web log about European Union law for students, academics, practitioners and anyone else who may be interested in it' ."
• European Union URLs Changed (May 22, 2006): "Since earlier this month, European Union institutional websites have a new '.eu' domain name. This means that sites whose addresses used to end with '.eu.int' now have an '.eu' ending instead. Many EU sites have also been renamed, sometimes in major ways."
• Another European Union Blog (June 24, 2006): "A relatively new blog called ECJBlog now covers news from the European Court of Justice. The blog is based in the Netherlands. The Court examines the legality of measures taken by European Union institutions and ensures the uniform interpretation and application of EU law."
• Government Accountability Resources (August 28, 2006) - the before last paragraph reads: "The European Union also has a European Court of Auditors which is on a par with the other institutions of the Union: the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, the European Commission and the Court of Justice of the European Communities. The Court ensures the reliability of the EU accounts and the legality of the transactions underlying the EU budget."
• Updated European Union Law Research Guide (October 2, 2006): "LLRX.com has updated the document entitled 'European Union Law: An Integrated Guide to Electronic and Print Research' by Marylin Johnson Raisch, the Librarian for International and Foreign Law at the John Wolff International and Comparative Law Library of the Georgetown Law Center."