The Official Journal (OJ) of the European Union is the official gazette of record for the European Union (EU). It is published every working day in all of the official languages of the member states. Only legal acts published in the Official Journal are binding.
It was first published on 30 December 1952 as the Official Journal of the European Coal and Steel Community. This was renamed Official Journal of the European Communities with the establishment of the European Community before taking its current title when the Treaty of Nice entered into force on 1 February 2003. Since 1998, the Journal has been available online via the EUR-Lex service.
The Journal comprises two series:
- The L series contains EU legislation including regulations, directives, decisions, recommendations and opinions.
- The C series contains reports and announcements including the judgments of the European Court of Justice and the General Court (formerly known as the Court of First Instance).
There is also a supplementary S series which contains invitations to tender, and other documents relating to the EU Procurement Directivs (see: Government procurement in the European Union). The 'S' Series is also the only series that is not issued in every working language of the Union. Each Contracting Authority issues notices in the language of their choice.
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“There are few ironclad rules of diplomacy but to one there is no exception. When an official reports that talks were useful, it can safely be concluded that nothing was accomplished.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“How truly does this journal contain my real and undisguised thoughts—I always write it according to the humour I am in, and if a stranger was to think it worth reading, how capricious—insolent & whimsical I must appear!—one moment flighty and half mad,—the next sad and melancholy. No matter! Its truth and simplicity are its sole recommendations.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“In verity ... we are the poor. This humanity we would claim for ourselves is the legacy, not only of the Enlightenment, but of the thousands and thousands of European peasants and poor townspeople who came here bringing their humanity and their sufferings with them. It is the absence of a stable upper class that is responsible for much of the vulgarity of the American scene. Should we blush before the visitor for this deficiency?”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“[With the Union saved] its form of government is saved to the world; its beloved history, and cherished memories, are vindicated; and its happy future fully assured, and rendered inconceivably grand.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)