Official Journal of the European Union and EUR-Lex

Translating legislation and policy documents is a demanding job. The terminology that is used in such documents must be precise and consistent. When translating such documents, it  is therefore necessary to know the terminology and to consult it with documents of the particular type and topic.  EU legislation and policy documents are published daily in the Official Journal of the European Union. In this unit you will work with the documents which are published online in the EUR-Lex database. You will search for particular documents as well as create a glossary for a given topic based on a EUR-Lex document. However, before you get to the hands-on use of the database, in this chapter, you will read about  its purpose and contents.

Official Journal of the European Union

 

The authoritative source of EU law

The Official Journal of the European Union (OJ) is the only periodical published every working day in all official languages of the European Union (EU).

It is published in several formats: you can subscribe to a daily paper edition, an offline edition on a CD Rom or you can access it online via EUR-Lex.

EUR-Lex

EUR-Lex gives comprehensive access to European law. It provides a convenient means for consulting the Official Journal of the European Union online, the treaties, the legislation in force, the document series of the European Commission, the case-law of the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance and the collection of consolidated legislation. It also provides links to other sources of information such as the registers of the institutions and other legislative sites of the EU and the Member States.

EUR-Lex offers harmonised search functions with the sophisticated search facilities of CELEX fully integrated to provide in-depth documentary and legal analysis. There is free access to all types of document (formats: HTML, PDF, Word and TIF) and in all 23 languages where available.

The European Union institutions offer a free and multilingual gateway to EU legislation online: EUR-Lex.

 

Ikona iDevice otázky Multiple choice
The Official Journal of the European Union (OJ) is published
  
7 times a week
once a week
each working day

EUR-Lex publishes the OJ documents
  
in a paper format
in an online format
on a CD Rom

CELEX number is useful when
  
searching a particular document in EUR-Lex
subscribing to OJ
you want to choose a particular format of the document (HTML, PDF, Word, TIF)

Ikona iDevice Now you know
  • what the Official Journal of the European Union is and why it is useful for translators
  • what the relation between the OJ and the EUR-Lex is
  • that the CELEX number is useful when searching for a particular document