# European Union — EUR-Lex ```json { "code": "EU", "name": "European Union", "publisher": "eur-lex.europa.eu", "publisher_name": "EUR-Lex, Publications Office of the European Union", "consolidated_text": "yes — but formally without legal effect (see below)", "authentic_languages": ["all 24 official languages, equally authentic"], "citation_format": "Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 ... (Artificial Intelligence Act), OJ L, 2024/1689, 12.7.2024", "preferred_url_form": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/{type}/{year}/{number}/oj (original) | .../{year}/{number}/{yyyy-mm-dd} (consolidated)", "markers": [ { "name": "superseded-by-consolidation", "severity": "superseded", "pattern": "Current consolidated version:\\s*(\\d{2}/\\d{2}/\\d{4})", "note": "You are reading the original OJ text. A later consolidation exists at the date captured — refetch it before quoting anything operative." }, { "name": "act-has-been-changed", "severity": "superseded", "pattern": "In force:\\s*This act has been changed", "note": "EUR-Lex is telling you this text has been amended since publication." }, { "name": "consolidated-no-legal-effect", "severity": "info", "pattern": "This text is meant purely as a documentation tool and has no legal effect", "note": "Correct version to READ. Not the version to CITE as authority — see the two-text problem below." } ] } ``` ## The two-text problem This is the thing to get right, and it catches people who have practised EU law for years. - The **OJ text** is authentic. It is also frozen at publication, so for any amended instrument it is usually **not what is in force**. - The **consolidated text** is what is in force. EUR-Lex prints on it, verbatim: *"This text is meant purely as a documentation tool and has no legal effect. The Union's institutions do not assume any liability for its contents. The authentic versions of the relevant acts, including their preambles, are those published in the Official Journal of the European Union."* So neither text alone is both current and authoritative. Read the consolidated version to know what the law says today. Cite the OJ text of the base act plus the amending acts for authority. If a point turns on exact wording and money is riding on it, check the wording in the OJ text of the amending act itself — the consolidation is an editorial product and carries no guarantee. A note that quotes the consolidated version without saying so is quoting a document its own publisher says has no legal effect. ### The consolidated text has no recitals Verified on the AI Act, 2026-08-23. The OJ text carries 180 recitals; the consolidated text at `02024R1689-20260727` carries **none** — it opens at the title block and goes straight to Chapter I, Article 1. So the division of labour is forced, not optional: - Reading what the law **says** today → consolidated. - Reading what the law **means** — purpose, context, the reasoning the CJEU will reach for → the OJ text, because that is the only place the recitals exist. A run that fetches only the consolidated version has silently dropped the entire interpretive apparatus. If a question turns on purpose rather than wording, you need both texts open. ### What the gap actually looks like Same instrument, same day, two addresses. The OJ text has 113 Articles and 13 Annexes. The consolidated text has 119 Articles and 14 Annexes. The six that do not exist at the canonical address: Article 4a Article 60a Article 75a Supervisory and enforcement powers of the AI Office Article 75b Commitments Article 75c Non-compliance, fines and periodic penalty payments Article 75d Safeguards and further specification A lawyer advising on enforcement exposure from `eli/reg/2024/1689/oj` would not find the enforcement articles, and nothing on the page would tell them they were looking at an incomplete instrument except the banner they did not come to read. This is the case the skill exists for. The six new Articles are the visible part. Of the 113 Articles the two texts share, **48 differ in wording** — including Article 3 (Definitions) and Article 5 (Prohibited AI practices). So the risk is not only citing a provision that was superseded wholesale. It is quoting Article 5 accurately, from the instrument's own canonical address, and having the wrong words. ### The consolidated text is marked up, and the markup is not wording EUR-Lex prints consolidated texts with the amending act shown inline: `▼B` opens material from the basic act, `▼M1` material from the first amendment, and `►C1 ... ◄` brackets a corrigendum. It is genuinely useful — it tells you which instrument put a sentence where it is — and `extract_provisions.py` keeps it in the text it stores. It is stripped before hashing, because it appears in every Article of a consolidated text and in none of an OJ text. Left in, the comparison above reports all 113 shared Articles as changed, which buries the 48 that are. Read that way the two-text problem looks like total divergence, and a tool that reports everything as changed is one the lawyer stops reading. ## URL forms, and a trap that looks like a dead link The **ELI path form works** with a plain HTTP client: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj original OJ text https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/2026-07-27 consolidated at that date The **query-string forms** (`/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:...`) answer **HTTP 202 with an empty body** when no `Accept` header is sent. That reads as a dead document and is not one. `fetch_source.py` sends the right headers; if you ever fetch EUR-Lex by another route and get nothing back, this is why. Do not conclude the text is unavailable, and do not fall back to a secondary source. Consolidated versions are addressed by CELEX as `0{YEAR}{TYPE}{NUMBER}-{YYYYMMDD}` — e.g. `02024R1689-20260727` is the AI Act consolidated to 27 July 2026. The original page links to every consolidation it has; that link is how you learn the date to ask for. ## Language All 24 language versions are equally authentic. English has no priority, and since Brexit it is nobody's sole national language in the Union. Where a point turns on a single word, a cross-check against at least the French and German texts is proportionate — divergences between language versions are a real and litigated phenomenon, and the CJEU resolves them by purpose rather than by picking a favourite. Say in the note which language version was read. ## What is operative Recitals are numbered and precede the Articles. They are **not operative**. They are used to interpret the Articles and the Court leans on them heavily, but a duty never lives in a recital. Quoting a recital as though it imposed an obligation is the single most common error in EU regulatory writing. Annexes are operative and are frequently where the thresholds, the lists and the technical criteria actually sit — the Article often does nothing but point at one. Never treat an Annex as an appendix. ## Also worth knowing - **Corrigenda** are published in the OJ and silently folded into consolidated texts. If a point turns on wording that seems odd, check whether a corrigendum moved it. - Regulations apply directly; Directives require national transposition, so a Directive on its own never answers whether a client is caught in a given member state. If the instrument is a Directive, the transposing national measure is the operative text and the EU instrument is only the frame. - Commission implementing and delegated acts carry much of the operative detail and are separate instruments with their own dates.