A new source of information on a wide range of European matters with ‘cenlaw’-CD-ROM
hardly any question will remain unanswered
by Hermann-Josef Seggewiß, Journalist

You are looking for information on Europe? A data collection on European matters? Such information is now being launched. It’s the CD-ROM ‘cenlaw - celex - cenjur’ issued by SEIDL-Datenbank Service GmbH in Bad Krozingen. The CD-ROM also provides useful information to any citizen being interested in.

‘cenlaw’-CD-ROM is an improved version of ‘EuroLex’ having  been issued about 10 years ago as a DOS-version by SEIDL  as well (see previous press information). It continues being issued by the editing companies Bundesanzeiger and Dr. Otto Schmidt. There are versions for both DOS and Windows.

The new ‘cenlaw’ is not only offering far more information but is also far cheaper and easy to handle. The perfectly designed Windows-technique including links to the most important European Servers is  perfectly matching with the present trends and also takes into the consideration the growing impact of Internet.

What information is offered by ‘cenlaw’? There are at first the authentic contents of the ‘celex’-data base introducing to Community Law. Among others you will find a great variety of legal instruments, articles of association of the European Community, treaties between the different member countries and international agreements between the EU and third-party countries. Part of it are also binding and non-commital laws, comments, resolutions as well as judgments pronounced by the Court of Justice of the European Communities.

The texts are well-structured and organized in paragraphs and chapters. A special reference system gives information on previous or subsequent versions of  legal instruments and also informs about if and how EU-directives have been implemented in national law of the different member countries. Moreover, the CD-ROM also contains interpellations from Members of the European Parliament on behalf of the Commission or the EU-Council together with the respective answers.

Moreover, ‘cenlaw’ provides assistance in the field of subjects dealing with ‘Community Law’ and gives detailed information on European Institutions such as the Parliament, the Council, the Commission, the Court of Auditors and the Court of Justice of the European Communities, to name just a few. How is Community Law working? What are directives or decrees based on? How can one use the ‘celex’-data base efficiently?

You don’t need much knowledge in the PC or data base field to work with said CD-ROM. There is no manual. The F1-Help will provide you help at any stage of the dialogue, either with regard to field topics or questions from a specific subject field. The CD-ROM having been developed by SEIDL is based on  the standard software ‘CD-Answer’ from Data Technologies, issued in German, French and English. It has been especially designed for Windows-applications but offers as well exclusive features to be run on DOS.

5 different search screens are now going to help you to do search and offer direct access possibilities (links) giving access to the most important European web-pages and information on Internet. Windows-technique at its best, extensive help and help texts together with the possibility to mark, to copy and to enter data make work more than easy.

System requirements:  a PC (486 or more advanced), a CD-ROM- drive, operating system: MS-DOS 6.22 (recommended) or more advanced, with or without WIN 3.1x, WIN 95/98 or WIN NT 4.0