The Gazette 1989

GAZETTE

FEBRUARY

1989

They consist of obligatory acts:

regulations,

directives

and

decisions under the EEC and

Euratom Treaties and decisions and

recommendations under the ECSC

Treaty and non-obligatory acts:

recommendations and opinions

under the EEC and Euratom Treaties

and opinions under the ECSC

Treaty. The names of the legal acts

under the EEC and Euratom Treaties

differ from those of equivalent

effect under the ECSC Treaty. The

following tables illustrate the

equivalent nature of the acts under

the three Treaties:

EEC/Euratom ECSC

Regulations

Decisions (General)

Directives

Recommendations

Decisions

Decisions (Individual)

Recommendations

Opinions

In terms of the acts made under

the EEC Treaty, regulations are

binding in their entirety and are

directly applicable in all member

states, without the necessity of

national implementing legislation.

Regulations are published in the

Official Journal

L Series (Acts

whose publication is obligatory) and

enter into force on the date

specified in the text or, in the

absence of a commencement date,

on the twentieth day following

publication. Publication is a neces-

sary condition of the regulations

having effect.

Directives are binding as to the

result to be achieved upon each

member state to which they are

addressed. Directives are intended

as instruments of approximation or

harmonisation and they are

normally issued with a set time limit

within which member states must

implement their requirements by

national legislation. Directives are

published in the

Official Journal

Series.

Decisions are binding in their

entirety upon those to whom they

are addressed - individuals,

member states or corporate groups.

They are published in the

Official

Journal

L Series. The majority of

Commission decisions are deter-

minations of specific cases. Many

of these cases, largely concerned

with restrictive practices, are

reported in the

Common Market

Law Reports

and are included in the

Indexes to EC case law.

The non-obligatory acts, recom-

mendations and opinions —are not

binding. They are published in the

Official Journal

L Series.

Official Journal

The

Official Journal

is the official

gazette of the European Com-

munities. It carries the text of all EC

primary and secondary legislation

and official announcements as well

as information on the activities of

the EC institutions.

The

Official Journal

is published

almost daily in two main series,

issued separately. It is available in

paper copy and microfiche.

1. The L series (legislation) con-

tains the text of enacted legisla-

tion divided into two sequences:

(a) Acts whose publication is

obligatory (EEC regulations

and ECSC general decis-

ions),

(b) Acts whose publication is

not obligatory (all other

legislation referred to above).

2. The C Series (Information and

Notices) contains different

categories of information from

the various Community institu-

tions. Not all categories will be

necessarily included in any one

issue. The following is covered:

(a) Commission - the text of

proposed legislation which

requires an Opinion from

the European Parliament,

rates of the European

Currency Unit.

(b ) Court of Justice - a list of

new cases brought before

the Court and summaries of

the judgments of the Court.

(c) European Parliament -

minutes of the Plenary Ses-

sions and written questions

and answers.

(d ) Economic and Social Com-

mittee - opinions of the

ESC.

(e) Notices of invitation to

tender for commercial and

research contracts and

staff vacancies.

In addition to the two main series

an S Series (Supplement) gives

details of public supply contracts

and the

Official Journal: Annex

publishes the full text of the

debates of the European Parliament.

On the accession of the UK,

Ireland and Denmark in 1973

Special Editions of the

Official

Journal

were published in English

and Danish versions giving official

translations of the legislation

enacted between 1952-1972 and

still in force in January 1973.

Indexes to the Official Journal

The index is issued monthly with

an annual cumulation. It is divided

into two parts:

(a ) Methodological Table,

(b) Alphabetical Index.

The Methodological Table lists

the legislative Acts by document

number; the Alphabetical Index is

a keyword subject Index.

Because of the lack of

cumulation of the annual indexes

and the previously complicated

classification arrangement of the

alphabetical Index it is often easier

to trace legislative acts through

other sources such as Butterworth's

European Communities Legislation:

Current Status,

published annually

and kept up to date by 3 cumulative

supplements published during the

year; Sweet and Maxwell's

Encyclopaedia

European

Community Law -

C volumes; the

EC's

Directory of Community

Legislation in Force,

published

twice yearly (not as easy to use as

Butterworths'

Current Status);

the

tables of EC secondary legislation

Halsbury's Laws of England,

4th

ed., Vol. 52 and current service to

Halsbury.

The full text of EC

legislation is searchable on CELEX,

the Commission's computerised

information retrieval system.

National implementation of

secondary legislation

As stated above, in the category of

obligatory acts, EEC regulations are

directly applicable in all member

states and ECSC decisions are

directly applicable to those to

whom they are addressed. Directives,

being binding as to the result to be

achieved in the member states con-

cerned, are intended to be implement-

ed by national legislation within a

specific period. In Ireland the imple-

mentation of directives is usually by

statutory instrument, though where

a directive requires a major reform

of the law, such as the second and

fourth Directives on Company Law,

implementation is by statute - in

these cases by the Companies

(Amendment) Act, 1983 and the

Companies (Amendment) Act, 1986,

respectively.

To find out if a particular directive

has been implemented by legis-

lation, the

Indexes to the Statutory

instruments

(published by the