EUR-Lex Access to European Union law
This document is an excerpt from the EUR-Lex website
Create stable links
You can create links to EUR-Lex, as long as you respect its copyright notice.
You may create a stable link to:
- a page in a specific language version
- specific pages related to the Official Journal:
- Direct access to the Official Journal page on EUR-Lex
- Official Journals by year – chronological list
- Official Journals by month – chronological list
- Table of contents of an Official Journal
- a specific document, by using an identifier (e.g. CELEX, ELI, ECLI)
To link to a page in a specific language version, use one of the language codes below after locale=
Example: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/oj/direct-access.html?locale=en
To link to a page in a specific language version, define this language by changing, in the link, the code after locale=.
The codes are:
| Bulgarian | bg |
| Croatian | hr |
| Czech | cs |
| Danish | da |
| Dutch | nl |
| English | en |
| Estonian | et |
| Finnish | fi |
| French | fr |
| German | de |
| Greek | el |
| Hungarian | hu |
| Irish | ga |
| Italian | it |
| Latvian | lv |
| Lithuanian | lt |
| Maltese | mt |
| Polish | pl |
| Portuguese | pt |
| Romanian | ro |
| Slovak | sk |
| Slovenian | sl |
| Spanish | es |
| Swedish | sv |
Formatting
- Year: 4 digits (yyyy)
- Month: 2 digits (mm)
- OJ number: 3 digits (xxx)
- OJ series: Capital letter, e.g. L or C
Examples:
Link to the EUR-Lex view (includes navigation elements) of the table of contents of OJ C 326/2015: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:C:2015:326:TOC
HTML view (without EUR-Lex navigation elements): add HTML in the structure of the link: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:C:2015:326:TOC
XML view of the notice: add XML in the structure of the link: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/XML/?uri=OJ:C:2015:326:TOC
Direct access to the EUR-Lex Official Journal page
Structure of the link: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/oj/direct-access.html?locale=language code
Example:
Link to the Official Journal direct access page in English: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/oj/direct-access.html?locale=en
Official Journals by year – chronological list
Structure of the link: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/oj/yyyy/direct-access.html?locale=language code
Example:
Link to Official Journals published in 2013 in English: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/oj/2013/direct-access.html?locale=en
Official Journals by month - chronological list
Structure of the link: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/oj/yyyy/mm/direct-access.html?locale=language code
Example:
Link to Official Journals published in November 2012 (2012/11) in English: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/oj/2012/11/direct-access.html?locale=en
Table of contents of an Official Journal
Structure of the link: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/LANGUAGE CODE/TXT/?uri=OJ:OJ SERIE:yyyy:OJ number:TOC
Formatting
- year: 4 digits (yyyy)
- OJ number: 3 digits (xxx)
- OJ series with a capital letter, e.g. L or C
If you want to link to specific tabs (wherever they exist) in the documents page, please use the following codes:
- Text: TXT
- Document information: ALL
- Procedure: HIS
- Internal procedures: PIN
- National transposition: NIM
- Summary of legislation: LSU
- Summary: SUM
Language version, see table above
OJ publication reference
Examples of links to a document published in OJ C 326/2015, page 12, in the text tab:
EUR-Lex view (includes navigation elements): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:OJ.C_.2015.326.01.0012.01.ENG
PDF view: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=uriserv:OJ.C_.2015.326.01.0012.01.ENG
HTML view (without EUR-Lex navigation elements): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=uriserv:OJ.C_.2015.326.01.0012.01.ENG
XML view of the notice of the act: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/XML/?uri=uriserv:OJ.C_.2015.326.01.0012.01.ENG
CELEX number
To find out how to construct a CELEX number, see: More about CELEX numbers.
Note: for recently published documents, it can take up to 2 days before a CELEX number is available.
Examples of links to a document whose CELEX number is 32011R1007:
EUR-Lex view (includes navigation elements): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32011R1007
HTML view (without EUR-Lex navigation elements): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32011R1007
XML view of the notice: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/XML/?uri=CELEX:32011R1007
Other types of identifiers
Some legal documents or procedures on EUR-Lex have identifiers that are attributed by the originating institution (unlike the CELEX number, which is assigned by the Publications Office of the European Union). As a result, while it is possible to build a pattern for their links, the sequence and logic of the reference numbers cannot be predicted in advance.
Below are some indicative cases:
- COM documents
When published, the links of the preparatory acts (COM/JOIN documents) are based on the number of the act itself. In the days following publication, a CELEX identifier is assigned to them, but these documents will also remain accessible with the links based on the number of the act.
Example: COM/2017/043 final: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM:2017:43:FIN
- Documents from the Council
The link is based on the number assigned by the Council and can differ according to the type of document:
- Council documents sent for signature by the European Parliament and the Council
Example: PE 45 2016 REV 1- 2016/0197 (OLP): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=consil:PE_45_2016_REV_1
- Council documents sent during the life cycle of the procedure: a voting result, in this example
Example: ST 15454 2016 INIT - 2016/0197 (OLP): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=consil:ST_15454_2016_INIT
- Council documents sent for signature by the European Parliament and the Council
Interinstitutional procedure
Links for the interinstitutional procedure are based on the reference for the procedure (year and number), after the language code.
Example of a link to Procedure 2015_906: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/procedure/EN/2015_906
Example of a link to the XML notice of Procedure 2015_906: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/download-notice.html?legalContentId=procedure:2015_906¬iceType=tree&callingUrl=/procedure/EN/2015_906&lng=EN
Documents related to an internal procedure
Below are 2 examples of the Commission’s internal procedures.
Commission implementing Decision: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=PI_COM:Ares(2016)6176893
Commission implementing Regulation: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=PI_COM:Ares(2017)291701
External links
Certain documents can be accessed through links to other EU websites. EUR-Lex has no control over these links.
ECLI identifier
The European Case Law Identifier is a 5-part identifier for case-law, designed to ease access to judicial decisions. It has been developed ‘to facilitate the correct and unequivocal citation of judgments from European and national courts’.
Read more about how to construct an ECLI identifier.The URL syntax is similar to other links to EUR-Lex.
EUR-Lex view (includes navigation elements): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/FR/TXT/?uri=ecli:ECLI:EU:C:2016:718
HTML view, without navigation elements: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/SL/TXT/HTML/?uri=ecli:ECLI:EU:C:2016:718
XML of the notice: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/XML/?uri=ecli:ECLI:EU:F:2016:177
ELI identifier
The European Legislation Identifier is a system to make legislation available online in a standardised format, so it can be accessed, exchanged and reused across borders. It can be used for EU as well as for national legislation.
Read more about ELI.The basic URI template is the following: http://data.europa.eu/eli/{typedoc}/{year}/{naturalnumber}/oj
Types of documents {typedoc}:
- Directives: dir or dir_impl or dir_del
- Regulations: reg or reg_impl or reg_del
- Decisions: typedoc either dec or dec_impl or dec_del
Examples:
http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/2000/60/ojhttp://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2013/216/oj
http://data.europa.eu/eli/dec/2009/496/oj
http://data.europa.eu/eli/dec/2009/496 (provides access to the most recent consolidated version of this act, if it exists)
Please note that, although the link contains the data.europa.eu domain, the returned page will be a EUR-Lex document or search result.
ELI offers many more templates, including the option to create links to lists of documents which meet selected criteria.
Detailed information on URIs of EU legislation using ELI
Language version, see table above