The Official Journal of the European Union (OJ) publishes EU legislation, regulations, working papers, European Court of Justice judgments, proposed legislation, and other official communications between EU institutions. In can be accessed electronically via Eur-Lex.
The OJ appears in the official EU languages in 2 series:
Within these series, there are 3 subseries:
I – a one-off (isolated) OJ
M - a special edition in Maltese, or an edition that is part of a backlog in a given language.
Find out more about OJ L and C series.
An OJ number comprises:
the letter denoting the series – L or C
followed by up to 3 digits
in some cases, followed by the letter denoting the subseries.
See the table below.
| Series L | Content |
|---|---|
|
L (Legislation) (i.e. OJ L 067) |
Contains all EU legislation (including secondary legislation). |
| Subseries | |
|
LI (Isolated) (i.e. OJ L 011I) |
A subseries introduced to make the planning and numbering of OJ more flexible. First used on 16 January 2016 (L 011I). |
| LM (i.e. OJ L 118M) | The M subseries has so far been used only to publish the backlog of Maltese-language material as, by derogation, not all acts were published in Maltese initially, after Malta joined the EU in 2004. |
Historical series
A and P - for legislative acts published before 1967.
| Historical series A and P | Content |
|---|---|
|
A (1952-1958) (i.e. OJ A 038) |
'A' stands for French 'antérieur' , i.e. before the European Communities were set up. It covers legislative acts dating from 1952 to April 1958. |
|
P (1958 - 1967) (i.e. OJ P 050) |
'P' stands for French 'postérieur', i.e. after the European Communities were set up. It covers legislative acts dating from May 1958 to 1967. |
| Subseries | |
|
CE (Electronic) (i.e. OJ C 296E) |
For electronic versions only. Published between 31 August 1999 and 31 March 2014, originally at the Commission's request, for COM documents. Later, the subseries was also used by:
|
