About Comdocuments

Service Description

The CORDIS RTD-Comdocuments Database contains details of two forms of Commission documents. The two forms of documents are COM (Commission) documents and SEC (Secretariat- General) documents. COM documents are identified by the abbreviation COM in their reference number. COM documents are published by the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities in all nine official Community languages. SEC documents are identified by the abbreviation SEC in their reference number. SEC documents are normally internal Commission documents and are not generally available to the public.

COM and SEC documents are documents sent by the Commission to the Council and to other Community bodies as part of the Community decision-making and legislative processes. They may be in the form of memoranda, reports, or other written communications; or they may be in the form of proposed legislation. The content of these documents may relate to any aspect of the business conducted between the Commission and other Community bodies.

COM and SEC documents included in the RTD-Comdocuments Database are selected on the basis of their relevance to Community Research and Technological Development matters.

Where successive versions of a document exist, they appear as separate documents, each with its own reference number, and each with a separate record in the database. When a document affects an earlier document the reference of the earlier document is given, and where an existing document is affected by a later document the reference to the new document is given. Occasionally a single document may contain more than one proposed legislative act. In such an instant each proposal is the subject of a separate record.

This database contains certain dates that represent milestones in the conduct of the business associated with the document. The actual procedures vary according to the nature of the business in hand so that different documents will be dealt with in different ways and not all documents will be subject to all the dates in this database. For more detailed information about these procedures reference should be made to the CORDIS User Manual as well as to the Community Treaties and to other documents defining them.

The database provides basic references for the document in the form of the document title, reference number, and date, and the Council and the Parliament references. Other dates provided include the Commission adoption date, the Council common position date, the Council decision date, and a withdrawal date. Records also contain references to the issue of the 'Official Journal' containing all or a part of the document. Each record also provides a summary of the document content, a subject index, an indication of the status of the document, and other information.

The content of the database is in English.

Summary of Fields

Note: Every record includes the fields marked with a red asterisk "*"; other fields are also included if relevant information is available.

Commission Service

An entry may appear in this field only when the entry in the Originating Body field is Commission; otherwise it will be empty and will not appear in the user output. When the item represented by the acronym in the Acronym field belongs to a specific Commission service, that service is shown here. Example services are: DG XII, SOEC, and TFHR.
 Example entry: DG XIII

Legislative Date

If the document contains a proposed Community legislative act (Decision, Directive, Regulation, etc.), this is the date of the act which was formally adopted on the basis of the proposal.
 Example entry: 1992-11-28

Legislative Reference

If the document contains a proposed Community legislative act (Decision, Directive, Regulation, etc.), this is the reference of the act which was formally adopted on the basis of the proposal.

References to Council Regulations are in the form 9999/YY/CCC, where 9999 represents the Council sequence number, YY represents the year, and CCC represents either EEC, ECSC, or EURATOM.

References to Council Decisions and directives are in the form YY/9999/AAA,BBB,CCC where YY represents the year, 9999 represents the Council sequence number, and AAA,BBB,CCC represents any or all of EEC, ECSC, and EURATOM, referring to the three major EU Treaties.

Document Date

This is the date that appears on the cover page of the document under the document reference number. The place name preceding the date is not included in this field. This date may vary slightly on different language versions of the same document, but only the one date for the English language version of the document is shown in this field. A typical document date is 30 November 1990. These would be converted into the standard CORDIS date format and would appear in this field as 1990-11-30.
 Example entry: 1990-11-30

Document Type

The entry in this field provides a classification for the document. It is a key word extracted from the document title. These classifications are listed in the catalogue below. Some of these classifications such as Decision, Directive, and Regulation relate to proposed legislation. Others such as Communication, Memorandum, and Report simply reflect the nature of the document.

A Regulation is binding in its entirety and is directly applicable in all Member States. Regulations override national legislation where this is in conflict. Regulations are published in the Official Journal and become effective on the date specified in them, or if no date is specified, on the twentieth day following the date of publication.

A Directive is binding, as to the result to be achieved, upon each Member State to which it is addressed, but leaves the method of implementation to the national authorities. Directives are notified to those concerned.

A Decision is binding in its entirety upon those to whom it is addressed. It may be addressed to individual Member States, organizations, or individuals, and may impose financial obligations. Decisions are notified to those concerned.

Recommendations and Opinions have no binding force but are simply statements of opinion.
 Example entry: Working Document

Document Reference

This field contains the essential elements of the document reference number appearing on the front cover of the document. Typical references in this field are COM(90) 574 and SEC(90) 1778. All COM and SEC documents included in the database have the word 'final' in their complete reference number, meaning that they have been formally adopted by the Commission and transmitted to other EU bodies. This word is omitted from the Document Reference field as well as any additional elements relating to the co-operation procedure, for example SYN 287.

However, if the word 'final' is followed by a slash and a digit, this slash and digit are included in the reference as it appears in this field, for example, COM (90) 190/2. This reference is the same for all language versions of the document.
 Example entry: COM(90) 257

General Information

The General Information field contains a broad summary of the content of the document and may contain additional information not included in the other fields.
 Example entry: A corrigendum to COM(92)91 final/2 of 24 April 1992, and applicable to all language versions, modifies the title of the document to: "Proposal for a Council Decision establishing a multiannual programme for the development of statistics on Research, Development and Innovation".

New Document Reference

When the document described in this record has been modified, corrected, completed, cancelled, or replaced by one or more new documents, this field contains references to the new documents. These document references have the same format as those appearing in the Document Reference field and are preceded by the words 'MODIFIED BY', 'CORRECTED BY', 'COMPLETED BY', 'CANCELLED BY', or 'REPLACED BY'.
 Example entry: SEC(93) 13375; MODIFIED BY COM(80) 574; REPLACED BY LET(81) 7124

Official Journal Date

This field shows the date of the edition of the Official Journal in which the text of the document, or part of it, was published.
 Example entry: 1991-03-25

Official journal Reference

This field contains the reference to the edition of the Official Journal in which the text of the document, or part of it, was published.
 Example entry: C 123

Previous Document Reference

When the document described in this record modifies, corrects, completes, cancels or replaces one or more existing documents, this field contains the reference for those earlier documents, preceded by the word MODIFYING, CORRECTING, COMPLETING, CANCELLING, or REPLACING.

These document references have the same format as that appearing in the Document Reference field.
 Example entry: MODIFYING COM(83); PRECEDED BY COM(90) 263

Remarks

The entries in this field relate to the status of the document or to the procedure of which the document is a part. These entries and the explanations for them are listed below:

 Example entry: Official Journal

Retraction Date

If a document has been withdrawn by the Commission this field contains the date that the document was withdrawn.
 Example entry: 1992-03-15

Subject Index Classification Codes

The codes used in this field are described in CORDIS Subject Index Classification Codes.
 Example entry: Transport

Title

This field contains the title as it appears on the front cover of the document. Where a document has two or more titles, each concerning a separate proposal, only one of the titles is given in this field and each of the others is the subject of a separate record.
 Example entry: Technological problems of nuclear safety. Report on the implementation of the Council Resolution of 22 July 1975 (1987-1991)

Quality Validation Date

The date that the information was checked prior to loading it on to the host.
 Example entry: 1994-11-27

Record Control Number

This field contains a number which provides a unique reference for each record in this database. When noted, it is a useful way of quickly retrieving the same record subsequently. It should be noted in the event of queries to the CORDIS Help Desk when these relate to a specific record.
 Example entry: 7096

Update Date

This field shows the date that the record was created or last updated. It is not necessarily the date on which the information was current.
 Example entry: 1992-01-20

Search Tips

The Boolean operators "AND", "OR" and "NOT" may be combined with search terms in the text boxes. If two or more terms are entered with either a comma or a space separating them, the default operator will be "AND".

Phrase searches should be put in double quotes (e.g. "License Agreement").

Wildcards ('?' for 1 character, or '*' for multiple characters) may be used within terms or to truncate word endings (e.g. 'parasit*'; 'analy?e').

Multiple terms may be selected in any of the list boxes in the Advanced Search or Professional Search interfaces. To select multiple terms using Windows, hold down the control key while clicking on your terms.

Additional information about searching the CORDIS Database services.