European National Implementing Measures Dataset

European Directives (EUDs) are binding upon Member States as to the results to be achieved, but leave to national authorities the choice of form and methods. Therefore, Member States adopt \textit{ad hoc} National Implementing Measures (NIMs) that mostly reproduce the contents of EUDs and transpose them into domestic legislation. This well-known process is defined as ``legal harmonization'' and consists of the gradual, although ambiguous, approximation of national legal orders as a result of the adoption of European legislation. In order to contribute to the analysis of this phenomenon, we collect a large and unique dataset composed of European and domestic legislative sources, which is an essential requirement to automatically pair EUDs and the corresponding NIMs, in light of their semantic similarity. The first results show the feasibility of the proposed task to discern NIMs from national legislation that does not contribute to implementing EUDs, thus constituting the foundation for a semantic search engine. We believe that our effort can promote future applications and research directions, with the ultimate aim to support traditional legal methodology, facilitate citizens' access to rights, support public administrations, and, more in general, promote democracy and the rule of law in the European Union.

欧盟指令（European Directives，EUDs）就需达成的目标而言对成员国具有约束力，但赋予各国主管机关自主选择执行形式与方法的权利。因此，各成员国会制定特设的国家实施措施（National Implementing Measures，NIMs），这类措施大多复现欧盟指令的内容，并将其转化为国内立法。这一广为人知的过程被定义为“法律协调（legal harmonization）”，其内涵为通过欧盟立法的施行，逐步（尽管存在一定模糊性）实现各国法律秩序的趋同。为推动该现象的分析研究，我们搜集并构建了一套由欧盟及各国国内立法文本构成的大规模独有数据集，鉴于欧盟指令与对应国家实施措施之间的语义相似性，该数据集是实现二者自动配对的核心必要条件。初步研究结果证实了本研究提出的任务具备可行性：即从未用于实施欧盟指令的国内立法中甄别出国家实施措施，该成果亦可作为语义搜索引擎的构建基础。我们相信，本项工作可推动相关后续应用与研究方向的发展，其终极目标在于为传统法律方法论提供支撑、便利公民获取自身权利、助力公共行政部门履职，总体而言更可助力欧盟范围内的民主建设与法治推行。