COUNCIL RESOLUTION of 20 June 1994 on the electronic dissemination of Community law and national implementing laws and on improved access conditions (94/C 179/02)

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty on European Union,

Recalling the Council resolution of 26 November 1974 on the automation of legal documentation (1), further to which the interinstitutional Celex system (computerized documentation on Community law) was gradually opened up to the Member States and the public in certain languages;

Also recalling the Council resolution of 13 November 1991 on the reorganization of the operating structures of the Celex system (2), further to which the Celex system was transferred to the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities and its 1992 to 1995 programme designed to make full documentation on Community law easily accessible in all the official languages by 1995 in principle;

Considering the European Parliament resolution of 6 May 1994 on the transparency of Community legislation and the need for it to be consolidated;

Having taken note of the report from the Permanent Representatives Committee based on the report from the Working Party on Legal Data Processing;

Whereas the proper operation of the internal market requires, inter alia, that any person to whom the law applies, wherever he or she is active in that market, must have access to coherent, exhaustive and reliable information on Community law as such but also on national follow-up measures in all the Member States; whereas, in addition to the transposition of Community Directives, national follow-up measures may include other regulatory measures taken to implement or supplement Community acts as a whole;

Noting that the Celex system contains a reference to national provisions implementing Community directives, but that these are in fact only provisions to be notified by Member States pursuant to those directives, and that, consequently, a version of the Community rule supplemented by all its national ramifications in the Member States, and especially a textual reproduction, is currently lacking;

Whereas, in order to facilitate access by all concerned to these national measures, it would be judicious to define, to the extent possible and from an operational point of view, the documentary coverage of Member States' implementing laws of a regulatory character, in relation to all Community legal instruments;

Noting at the same time that practically all Member States now have national public or private legal databanks or databases systematically recording all measures taken within their territory in the context of Community law;

Whereas, in any event, synergy between both national and Community legal databanks and databases should be exploited and the dissemination of data by the advanced means currently offered by data-processing technology should be promoted;

Whereas one such means could be compact discs (CD-ROMs), which are characterized by their flexibility of use and by the fact that they involve no connection costs; whereas this means of disseminating legal information should be encouraged;

Whereas another means would be to make the legal information accessible via a network which could be organized within the framework of an existing or future Community programme; whereas one such means is already recommended, under another heading, by the abovementioned European Parliament resolution, point 13 of which considers that, as a priority, the IDA programme under examination (trans-European networks for the interchange of data between administrations) should contemplate the establishment of a network linking the offices responsible for publishing Official Journals in the Member States and in the Community so as to allow access to the full text of national provisions transposing Community legislation and make it possible to consult these texts via the Celex database;

Whereas such synergy would, moreover, inevitably increase the rate of consultation of legal databanks and databases and consequently increase their profitability;

Whereas, finally, such synergy would ensure a division of labour at national and Community level in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as defined by the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 3b thereof;

Whereas, in order to achieve the objective of this resolution, it would seem appropriate for Member States to recommend that their legal databanks establish, each for its own part, the requisite interactive capacity for direct, coherent and systematic exchanges of information between national and Community databanks and databases;

Whereas, however, a study should first be conducted of all the requisite conditions for bringing about the synergy in question,

HAS AGREED AS FOLLOWS:

I

The Community institutions are requested to:

- study, from an operational point of view, the scope of national measures implementing Community law,

- explore, from a technical point of view, the infrastructure, standards, protocols and interfaces that would be necessary to establish synergy between Community and national legal databanks and databases, in particular the possibilities of networking the latter as part of an existing or future Community electronic data-exchange programme, as well as the opportunities for the use of CD-ROM,

- study, from a budgetary point of view, the resources which would be required in order to achieve the objective of this resolution.

II

On the basis of any information supplied by the Community institutions, the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities and national delegations, the Working Party on Legal Data Processing shall be responsible for examining possible solutions and submitting to the Permanent Representatives Committee in due course a further report accompanied, if appropriate, by a draft resolution on the practical steps which might be taken to achieve the objective of this resolution.

III

Pending the findings of the studies referred to in point I and the report mentioned in point II Member States are requested to recommend to their national legal databanks that they include in their records of national measures a precise reference to the Community legal instruments to which such measures relate.

(1) OJ No C 20, 28. 1. 1975, p. 2.

(2) OJ No C 308, 28. 11. 1991, p. 2.