Posted on 19 March 2015
The Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) has now its own information page on the Wikipedia platform. The presence on the web has been widened with new profile pages in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish that meet high quality standards required by the widely recognized community of contributors.
The page describes the legal basis of the Historical Archives of the European Union, like the decisions by the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Council in 1983 concerning the opening to the public of the archives of the European Communities, which led to the establishment of the HAEU as the official archives for the historical documents of the institutions of the European Union; the 1984 contract between the European Communities and the European University Institute, which laid the groundwork for establishing the Archives in Florence; and the Framework Partnership Agreement signed in 2011 which reinforces its role and regulates the acquisition of private fonds.
Another section is dedicated to the holdings of the HAEU, composed of fonds coming from the European institutions and agencies and their predecessor organizations. Here, readers can find the European Institutions that have deposited their documents in the HAEU, such as the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Parliamentary Assembly, the European Space Agency or the European Movement as well as the private fonds and unique collections transferred and preserved for consultation.
Hence, within the European University Institute to which it belongs, the HAEU’s mission is to provide a single preservation and access point for research on primary sources for the study of the history of European integration. Stating the major effort made by the HAEU to provide access to these deposits as a basis for strengthening European democracy and its institutions, practical information on consultation services and research assistance offered in the premises of Villa Salviati is very much detailed. The article includes also information on the online access to part of the documents through the Archives’ webpage.
Access to the HAEU's Wikipedia page