Since the European Union (EU) produces over 100 new pieces of legislation each week, and has been doing so for forty years, locating any particular document is a formidable task.

CELEX, whether online or on CD-ROM, provides the best way of navigating this gargantuan labyrinth of legal documentation. It does more than that, since the structure of CELEX reflects the structure of the legal entity which is the EU, so understanding CELEX is a considerable help in understanding the way in which the EU works.

We have produced this completely revised Third Edition of The CELEX Database in order to take account of recent developments in both the EU and CELEX since the Second Edition, most notably the accession of ten new Member States in May 2004.

This book has been produced electronically for the first time, and we hope that it will be of interest to both current and potential Justis CELEX subscribers alike.

The CELEX Database is available to download, free of charge, as 13 separate PDF files:

• Preface and Chapter 1. Introduction
• Chapter 2. General Description of CELEX
• Chapter 3. CELEX Sectors 3/4
• Chapter 4. CELEX Sector 5
• Chapter 5. CELEX Sector 7
• Chapter 6. CELEX Sector 6
• Chapter 7. CELEX Sectors 1/2
• Chapter 8. CELEX Sector 9
• Chapter 9. Some hints on searching CELEX
• Chapter 10. Types of Legal Database
• Chapter 11. Publications of the European Union
• Chapter 12. Other Databases of the European Commission
• Appendices and About the Authors