This document is an excerpt from the EUR-Lex website
Consolidated texts
In this section, you can find consolidated versions of European Union acts that give the view of the act as applicable at a specific point in time. This section covers legal acts published in the Official Journal of the European Union that were amended or corrected in the course of their life cycle.
How to search in this section
If you want to access consolidated texts, you can use the Search in Consolidated texts function on the left-hand side of this page. This redirects to an advanced search form that offers many options. Searches will be performed only within the remit of the “Consolidated texts” section (acts that have not been amended or corrected and, as a consequence, never consolidated, will not be found).
The current consolidated texts are also directly accessible from search results and from the page of the initial act.
If you click on “Show all versions” on the left-hand side of a consolidated text, you will see a list of all consolidated versions of the specific act.
Consolidation is the action of combining an initial act and all its subsequent amendments and corrections in a single document. This document shows the legal rules that are applicable at a certain point in time. Amendments usually consist of inserting, deleting, replacing or adding text to an initial legal act.
Consolidated texts have no legal effect. They are intended for use as documentation only, although they do serve as a basis of codification.
The Publications Office of the European Union regularly consolidates acts from the collection of secondary legislation, international agreements and founding treaties.
The date in the header of a consolidated text refers to the date on which the latest amendment included in that consolidated version becomes applicable.
At the beginning of each consolidated text, the list of all acts affecting that consolidated text is displayed. The consolidated text itself contains tags that indicate where each part of the text comes from (from the basic act, an amending act, a corrigendum or an accession treaty).
Consolidated texts use the following abbreviations:
- B = basic act, i.e. the initial act being amended or corrected
- M = modifier, i.e. the amending act
- A = accession treaty
- C = corrigendum