Consolidated legislation
Consolidation consists of the integration in a legal act of its successive amendments and corrigenda. It provides more transparency and easier access to EU law. Several legal texts published in different issues of the Official Journal of the European Union are combined as a 'consolidated family' in one easy-to-read document.
The entry point for the consolidated legislation is via the Directory of European Union legislation in force. If a basic act has been consolidated then a link to the corresponding family is offered. A family can group several successive consolidations of a given basic act. Every family contains different consolidated versions of a given basic act, chronologically listed according to the date of entry into force of the amendments concerned.
As EU legislation is evolving, due to frequent publications of new amending legal acts, the collection of consolidated legislation is not complete and it cannot be guaranteed that a text represents the up-to-date state of the legislation in force.
However, each consolidated text contains a list of all legal documents taken into account for its construction. Therefore a comparison with the data in the Directory of European Union legislation in force allows an easy check on the current state of consolidation. Furthermore, each part of the text is enriched with data concerning its origin (basic act, amending act or corrigendum).
Consolidated legislation is available online, on EurLex website. It can be consulted or downloaded, for free, as a PDF or HTML file.
Consolidated texts are intended for use as documentation tools and the institutions do not assume any liability for their content. Please note that these texts have no legal value. For legal purposes please refer to the texts published in the Official Journal of the European Union.
