European Union Legal Materials: A Guide for Infrequent Users

This guide is intended for the researcher who infrequently needs to research European Union (EU) law or related materials or to locate EU official documents. The expert or experienced researcher should consult the research guides listed at the end of this article 1 for more detailed information on EU legal materials. With the addition of ten new member states in 2004, the EU currently has a population of approximately 450 million people comprising twenty-five European nations. 2 The EU gross national product has a value of nearly U.S. $ 9 trillion, roughly the size of the U.S. economy. 3 Because the EU is a major trading partner with the United States, knowledge of EU law will become more widespread as this organization takes a more prominent role in international trade and international affairs generally. Even the law library that does not consider international law a strength of its collection will occasionally have to meet the needs of patrons seeking to locate information on EU law. 4 Brief Overview The European Union is a supranational organization whose twenty-five members include most countries of Europe. 5 Each member nation is referred to as a member state. The current twenty-five member states are Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. 6 The EU began as the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1953 with an original purpose of ...