EUR-Lex is a vital contribution to the policy of openness pursued by the Commission and the institutions as a whole, and a service which meets a growing public demand. It will also help to build an ongoing dialogue with the public and the world of business. EUR-Lex is designed for everybody, even if we expect that most users will be students, professors, lawyers, civil servants, journalists and, of course, the entire economic world. EUR-Lex is directed at the general public and makes information available in the form produced by the institutions. Therefore EUR-Lex is designed to make it easy to navigate between the different pages, and the ergonomic work has concentrated on simplicity and restraint.
Information is regarded as the key to a democratic Europe.
So the decision to create EUR-Lex was made to help achieve the goal of transparency as underlined in the Treaty of Amsterdam. But EUR-Lex also makes an important contribution to the development of the Single Market and the emergence of a European legal space. However, to fulfil the notion of free access to information, the public must have direct, easy and user-friendly access to a contact point which will help them find any information on the EU that is available from the institutions and the Member States. It is also very important to avoid discrimination due to geographical location, etc. EUR-Lex demonstrates clearly that new information technology can be useful in promoting transparency and provide easy access to information about the Union.