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Official Journal

The Official Journal of the European Union (OJ) is the main source of EUR-Lex content. It appears in the official EU languages in 2 series:

• L - Legislation 

• C - Information and notices (C stands for 'communications').

Within these series, there are 3 subseries:

• A - an OJ that is an annex to another OJ

• 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.

Series C	Content
C (Information and notices)  (i.e. OJ C 100)	Other official documents from the EU institutions, bodies and agencies.
Subseries
CA (Annex)  (i.e. OJ C 019A)	Contains vacancy notices and calls for expressions of interest. Can be published in one, several or all official languages.
CI (Isolated) (i.e. OJ C 015I)	A subseries introduced to make the planning and numbering of OJ more flexible. First used on 16 January 2016 (C 015I).

 

 Historical series

• A and P - for legislative acts published before 1967.

• CE - for electronic documents published between 1999 and 2014.  

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: the Council - to publish common positions the European Parliament - for various document types (minutes of plenary sittings, adopted texts, written questions). Documents which would once have been published in this subseries are now part of the C series.