How to use the Primary Source Material of the European Communities (EC)

Abstract

Publications of the EC ought to be published by the Office for Official Publications of the EC (henceforth cited as “Office”) in Luxembourg. However, the five institutions which are jointly responsible for the Office (European Parliament, Council, Commission, Court of Justice, Economic and Social Committee) also publish documents and papers themselves. Moreover, a clearly defined publication policy does not exist neither in the Office nor in the institutions. These two factors, the variety of publishers and the lack of concept, make it particularly difficult to know what has been published in the EC, all the more for persons from non-member countries. The “Catalogue of the publications of the European Communities Institutions 1972–1973” (476 pages) does not provide complete information on the publications, although this catalogue is, of course, helpful. The enormous bulk of paper issued by the EC is partly for sale, partly for distribution free of charge, only a part of the documents are printed, others are duplicated typescripts; a lot of paper is brought out for the information of the general public, whereas legal and scientific texts are only of interest for a smaller number of persons. For a librarian in charge of getting adequate information on the EC, I should like to propose the acquisition of the following minimum set of EC publications:Primary legislation (foundation treaties),Official Journal (L and C),Official Journal– Annex (Debates of the European Parliament),Working documents of the European Parliament,Reports of Cases before the Court,General Reports on the Activities of the EC,Bulletin of the EC and Supplement thereto.