Knowledge Representation and Modelling Legal Norms: The EU Services Directive

This paper presents an ontology based model which assists the user in formally specifying her or his information demand and in turn to deliver information across diverse authorities and local and functional jurisdictions, but individualised to the user’s needs. For integration of information from and about different sources and relevant authorities, an information layer model is used. Text modules allow for flexibility, the reuse of text, and individualisation of information. Although the focus of this paper is on the transposition of the information duties imposed by the EU Services Directive, most considerations also apply to legal information and transaction portals in general, especially those which need to represent broad as well as in-depth information.