How to Search
The search in all fields (Title, Author, Doc.Num) refers only to the complete input string (e.g. any word or sentence or any part of a word or sentence). Therefore no maskings or truncations (like '*' or '+') should be used. There is no distinction between capital and small letters!
Many entries in our catalogue, especially the offical documents (e.g. COM, CdR, CES and PE) are not only available in printed form, but also as multilingual bibliographical reference and/or as electronic full text. To limit the search to electronic versions just activate the button "only full texts". A PDF-reader has to be installed.
Document type (field: Doc.Type) and document numbers (field: Doc.Num) of official documents are explained in the following table. It is possible to enter any string (or a part of it) in the Doc.Num field.
| Doc.Type | Description | Doc.Num (examples) | Printed version | EDC database | Full text |
| DIR | Directives | DIR/1959/0221 | 1959 - 1999 | 1959 - | 1959 - |
CdR | Reports of the Committee of the Regions | CdR/1996/0438 | 1996 - 2003 | 1996 - | 1999 - |
CES CESE1) | Opinions of the Economic and Social Committee | CES/1997/0985 | 1984 - 2003 | 1985 - | 1997 - |
| CONSLEG | Consolidated legislation | CONSLEG/374L0409 | 1996/97 | 1996/97 | - |
| COM | Documents of the European Commission | KOM/1997/0647 | 1968 - 2002 | 1985 - | 1995 -2) |
| JOIN | Documents of the European Commission and the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy | JOIN/2012/0013 | - | 2012 - | 2012 - |
| PE | Reports of the European Parliament | PE/1997/A4-0271 | 1966 - 1997 | 1985 - | 1996 - |
SEC SWD3) | Documents issued by the Secretariat General of the Commission | SEK/1999/0148 SWD/2001/0012 | single copies | SEC: 1997 - 2012 SWD: 2012 - | 1997 - |
1) The renaming of the "Economic and Social Committee" to "European Economic and Social Committee" has also affected the document number. Since 2003, the document number begins with "CESE".
2) COM documents (recorded in the EDC database as 'KOM') published in the Official Journal C of the EU from 1995 onwards can be accessed as full texts or as bibliographic references with additional information in all official languages. The title entries of the older COM documents and those not published in the Official Journal are translated into various official EU languages.
3) SEC documents (recorded in the EDC database as 'SEK') were renamed SWD documents in 2012. The name "SEC" was reintroduced in 2017 for "Opinions of Impact Assessments".