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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“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)
“After the writer’s death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.”
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)
“No European spring had shown him the same intermixture of delicate grace and passionate depravity that marked the Maryland May.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“... as women become free, economic, social factors, so becomes possible the full social combination of individuals in collective industry. With such freedom, such independence, such wider union, becomes possible also a union between man and woman such as the world has long dreamed of in vain.”
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935)