October 2012

Did you Know?

The European Union offers a wide range of resources (including databases, free access to documents and statistics, etc) to help the academic, business and public communities in furthering the development of EU and associated countries.

EDC News: EU Transparency Policy & Resources

The EU has developed a Transparency policy, which gives the public open-access to the majority of its documentation and data. The development of this policy came about as a result of European Union's belief that its activities affect the lives of millions of European citizens and, therefore, such decisions must be taken as openly as possible. It is the EU citizens’ right to know:

• how the European institutions and its participants are preparing these decisions

• who receives funding from the EU budget

• what documents are held or produced for the preparation and adoption of the legal acts

• how to access those documents, and make your views known, directly or indirectly, through various representations.

As part of the implementation of this policy the EU have provided a number of resources for accessing this information, such as:

• the Directorates-General (DGs) websites;

• EU databases and the resource’s website, e.g. Market Access Database (which includes: trade barriers by country and sector;  import duties; related taxes and documentary import requirements applicable in export markets; trade statistics; studies on market access related topics; etc); also

• publications (mostly FREE of charge) from the EU Bookshop.