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.
Famous quotes containing the words official, journal, european and/or union:
“Well, on the official record you’re my son. But on this post you’re just another trooper. You heard me tell the recruits what I need from them. Twice that I will expect from you.... You’ve chosen my way of life. I hope you have the guts enough to endure it. But put outa your mind any romantic ideas that it’s a way to glory. It’s a life of suffering and of hardship and uncompromising devotion to your oath and your duty.”
—James Kevin McGuinness, and John Ford. Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke (John Wayne)
“The Journal is not essentially a confession, a story about oneself. It is a Memorial. What does the writer have to remember? Himself, who he is when he is not writing, when he is living his daily life, when he alive and real, and not dying and without truth.”
—Maurice Blanchot (b. 1907)
“Unsophisticated and confiding, they are easily led into every vice, and humanity weeps over the ruin thus remorselessly inflicted upon them by their European civilizers.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“We are constantly thinking of the great war ... which saved the Union ... but it was a war that did a great deal more than that. It created in this country what had never existed before—a national consciousness. It was not the salvation of the Union, it was the rebirth of the Union.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)