In the past years access to EU law has been significantly enhanced via services such as EUR-Lex. This development not only allows for easy retrieval of individual legal acts, but for collecting... Show moreIn the past years access to EU law has been significantly enhanced via services such as EUR-Lex. This development not only allows for easy retrieval of individual legal acts, but for collecting information about the evolution of EU law in the aggregate as well. This contribution argues that by charting and analysing the evolution of the body of EU law over time, we can understand better the nature and development of the EU as a political system. The text examines the legislative productivity of the EU over the past 15 years as an illustration. Further, it showcases recent examples of the use of novel data-analytic techniques to analyse the body of EU law for the purposes of understanding the EU legal system, the institutions, and the polity that produced the legal acts. The contribution concludes by arguing that it is important to transmit basic facts and insights about the evolution of EU law and law-making to the general public as well, in order to counter the threat of Euroscepticism and perceptions of democratic deficit in the EU. Show less
