How to use search facilities

A. How to search for documents

This portal to EU law provides a single search entry point to the complete collection of EU legal texts as found in CURIA and the official document repositories managed by the Publications Office. The integrated service search facility permits two general types of searches:

• A global 'quick search' in the home page permits a plain text search in the web pages and documents of the EUR-Lex portal.
• The global 'all' search (search by document number or by words) as well as the specific domain searches permit a search in all documents stored in the document repositories. The following domains are available: Official Journal of the European Union (OJ), Treaties, Legislation, Legislation in preparation, Case-law, Parliamentary questions and Documents of public interest.

A further option is to access documentary sources by the direct links provided in the home page or in the individual domains' search screens.

General search options to be found in the individual search screens are:

• Selection of language for the retrievable documents.
• Note: you can choose to retrieve documents in a different language to that of the search menus. If you want to select a different language for the search menus, click on the relevant icon in the linguistic bar.
• Number of documents to display by results page.
• The advanced-CELEX option offers direct access to this site for which a CELEX user-id is required.

Context-relevant help and options available for each type of search (e.g. searching by word, document date, reference) are provided by clicking the question mark '?' at the end of the field title.

B. How to use search results

1. Introduction
   The following developments refer to the results returned on searching the various domains of the portal. For help on search results in the sites available through links offered in the portal, including 'quick search' results, please refer to the relevant sites.
   On making a search a list of results is returned preceded by the number of documents found and a description of the search criteria just launched. The results are grouped in 'result pages'. The default is the first results pageand can move to another page by clicking on the relevant number.
   The document's official title along with the publication reference is usually displayed together with a series of maximum six flags: 'More info' and up to five presentation flags (depending on the availability of the document in the corresponding form).
   
   
2. More info
   By clicking on this sign you may access any available additional information, the type of which depends on the nature of the document.
   • The CELEX document number
     For more information on how the CELEX number is structured see:
     [http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/information/help/help-dir.html]
   • For more information on how the CELEX number is structured see
     Reference to the final proposal of the Commission (indicated as COM final) and the procedure used for the adoption of the act is given in parentheses below the full title of the document.
     For the legislative procedures the following codes are used:
     • consultation procedure (CNS);
     • co-decision procedure (COD);
     • cooperation procedure (SYN);
     • assent (AVC);
     • procedure under Article 133 EC (ACC);
     • consultation with the European Central Bank (CNB).
   • Document code under the Directory of Community legislation in force
     The directory, published in all the official Community languages, is meant purely as a documentation tool. The documents are classified into 20 different chapter headings. The information available via the 'More info' option indicates for each document the numerical code and titles of the heading and its subsections. By clicking on the code, the user accesses the relevant chapter of the directory and is able to find other documents dealing with the same code heading.
     The directory covers secondary legislation, including legislation arising from the external relations of the European Communities (or of the Member States where their external relations are linked with those of the Communities) and supplementary legislation (decisions of representatives of the Member States meeting within the Council, international conventions concluded between Member States in accordance with Treaty provisions, etc.).
   • Eurovoc
     This European multilingual listing of expressions or thesaurus has been developed for one-to-one indexing of documentary information from the European institutions. Eurovoc provides a good overview on the subject of the document without having to read the full text. It substitutes the textual information in documents where none is provided.
   • o Clickable references to acts affecting the document
     The following codes are used:

     Adopted by Amended by Application delayed by Application extended by Completed by Confirmed by Consolidated Derogation in Implemented by Incorporated in Interpreted by Partly suspended by Partly re-established by Repealed by Replaced by See Suspended by

     
     
   • o Monitoring the decision-making process
     Information on the legislative procedure for a document can be found in the following services:
     OEIL: covers the activities of the institutions involved in the legislative procedure and the decision-making process. This service makes it possible to follow and monitor the Community decision-making process and to monitor and evaluate the workload of the Parliament and its committees, the Commission's annual work programme and the proposals from the different Council presidencies.
     PreLex: covers the interinstitutional procedures and follows the major stages of the decision-making process between the Commission and the other institutions (stage of procedure, decisions of the institutions, contact, responsible services, document references etc. ). It monitors equally the works of the various institutions involved. PreLex follows all Commission proposals and communications from their transmission to the Council or the European Parliament right through to their adoption or rejection by the Council, their adoption by the Parliament or their withdrawal by the Commission.
     
     
     
3. 
   A document in portable document format PDF includes the complete text of the document with annexes, tables and illustrations, if any.
   
   
4. 
   A tagged-image file (TIF) is a digital image of the paper version of the document, including annexes, tables and illustrations, if any.
   
   
5. 
   Hypertext markup language (HTML) format presents only the text of the document and its annexes, without tables or illustrations.
   
   
6. 
   This icon links to the text in its original format, as received from the relevant European institution (usually MS Word).
   
   
7. Jurisprudence
   This icon links directly to the text (in HTML) of the judgment in the CURIA website.