CELEX ID: 52012XG1026(01)

--- ENGLISH ---

Document:
26.10.2012
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
C 325/3
Council conclusions inviting the introduction of the European Legislation Identifier (ELI)
(2012/C 325/02)
I.   
INTRODUCTION
1.
Article 67(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union provides for the constitution of an area of freedom, security and justice with respect for fundamental rights and the different legal systems and traditions of the Member States.
2.
A European area of freedom, security and justice in which judicial cooperation can take place requires not only knowledge of European law, but in particular mutual knowledge of the legal systems of other Member States, including national legislation.
3.
The e-Law formation of the Working Party on e-Law is competent in matters of developments regarding the legal databases and information systems managed by the Publications Office of the European Union
 (
1
)
.
II.   
IDENTIFICATION OF THE NEEDS
4.
The EUR-Lex and N-Lex portals should fulfil the objective of providing access to information about the EU and Member States’ legal systems and should serve as a useful tool for citizens, legal professionals as well as Member States’ authorities.
5.
Knowledge on the substance and application of European Union law cannot be solely acquired from EU legal sources, but also from national sources, in particular from national legislation implementing European Union law.
6.
The process of cooperation within the European Union has increased the need to identify and exchange legal information originating from regional and national authorities at the European level. This need is partially met by digitally available legal information and the widespread use of the internet. However, the exchange of legal information is greatly limited by the differences that exist in the various national legal systems, as well as the differences in their technical systems used to store and display legislation through their respective websites. This hampers the interoperability between the information systems of national and European institutions, despite the increased availability of documents in electronic format.
7.
The use of ELI could help overcoming these problems. Using unique identifiers and structured metadata in referencing national legislation in Official Journals and Legal Gazettes, if Member States so decide, would allow effective, user-friendly and faster search and exchange of information, as well as efficient search mechanisms for legislators, judges, legal professionals and citizens.
III.   
IDENTIFICATION OF SOLUTIONS
8.
In line with the principle of proportionality and the principle of decentralisation, each Member State should continue to operate its own national Official Journals and Legal Gazettes in the way they prefer.
9.
However, in order to facilitate the further development of interlinked national legislations and to serve legal professionals and citizens in their use of these databases, a common system for the identification of legislation and its metadata is regarded as useful. Such a common standard is compatible with the principles outlined in the previous paragraph.
10.
For the identification of legislation, a unique identifier should be used which is recognizable, readable and understandable by both humans and computers, and which is compatible with existing technological standards. In addition, ELI proposes a set of metadata elements to describe legislation in compliance with a recommended ontology. The European Legislation Identifier (ELI) should guarantee a cost-effective public access to reliable and up-to-date legislation. Benefiting from the emerging architecture of the semantic web, which enables information to be directly processed by computers and humans alike, ELI would allow a greater and faster exchange of data by enabling an automatic and efficient exchange of information.
11.
ELI should give the Member States and the European Union a flexible, self-documenting, consistent and unique way to reference legislation across different legal systems. ELI URIs uniquely identify in a stable way each legislative act across the European Union, while at the same time taking into account the specificities of national legal systems.
12.
ELI takes into account not only the complexity and specificity of regional, national and European legislative systems, but also changes in legal resources (e.g. consolidations, repealed acts etc.). It is designed to work seamlessly on top of existing systems using structured data and can be taken forward by Member States at their own pace.
13.
The European Case Law Identifier (ECLI)
 (
2
)
, applicable on a voluntary basis, already provides a European system for the identification of case-law. ELI identifies legislative texts which have different and more complex characteristics, and the two systems are complementary.
IV.   
CONCLUSION
14.
The Council welcomes the initiative of a number of Member States to develop, on a voluntary basis at the national level, the European Legislation Identifier (hereinafter referred to as ELI).
15.
Noting that each element of ELI (i.e. unique identifiers, metadata and ontology) as set out in the Annex is subject to voluntary, gradual and optional introduction, the Council invites the Member States who decide to introduce ELI, and on a voluntary basis, to:
(a)
Apply ELI to pieces of national legislation which can be found in national Official Journals, Legal Gazettes or databases operated by Member States;
(b)
the way they see technically most feasible, provide pieces of national legislation, which are published in national Official Journals, Legal Gazettes or made available in their databases, with:
(a)
a unique identifier, based on a template using some or all of the components set out in paragraph 1 of the Annex;
(b)
some of the metadata and ontology as set out in paragraph 2 of the Annex;
(c)
appoint a national ELI coordinator as described in paragraph 3.1 of the Annex;
(d)
share and disseminate information on ELI;
(e)
discuss each year in the Council Working Party on the progress made with the introduction of ELI and metadata for national legislation.
16.
Noting that each element of ELI (i.e. unique identifiers, metadata and ontology) as set out in the Annex is subject to voluntary, gradual and optional introduction, the following recommendations would apply:
(a)
ELI should be applied to European Union legislation which can be found in the 
Official Journal of the European Union
 and the EUR-Lex portal operated by the Publications Office of the European Union;
(b)
Therefore, the Publications Office of the European Union should, acting in accordance with Decision 2009/496/EC
 (
3
)
, integrate ELI as a part of the EUR-Lex portal, as described in paragraph 4 of the Annex;
(c)
The Publications Office of the European Union could host and maintain on its EUR-Lex portal the register of formal descriptions of Member States’ URI schemes, the referenced authority tables together with the ELI ontology, as well as useful information.
17.
Apart from Member States, candidate countries and Lugano States
 (
4
)
 and others are encouraged to use the ELI-system.
(
1
)
  See 16113/10.
(
2
)
  The Council invited the introduction of the European Case Law Identifier and a minimum set of uniform metadata for case-law by way of conclusions (
OJ C 127, 29.4.2011, p. 1
).
(
3
)
  
OJ L 168, 30.6.2009, p. 41
.
(
4
)
  Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.
ANNEX
ELEMENTS OF ELI
The following elements of ELI address these requirements on a technical basis. These components can be implemented independently of each other, but the combination of all of them will give the full benefits of ELI.
1.   
Identification of legislation — Ways to uniquely identify, name and access national and European legislation
ELI uses ‘HTTP URIs’ to specifically identify all online legal information officially published across Europe. These URIs are formally described by machine-readable URI templates (IETF RFC 6570), using components that carry semantics both from a legal and an end-user point of view. Each Member State will build its own, self-describing URIs using the described components as well as taking into account their specific language requirements.
All the components are optional and can be selected based on national requirements and do not have a pre-defined order. To enable the exchange of information the chosen URI template must be documented using the URI template mechanism, see example below:
/eli/{jurisdiction}/{agent}/{sub-agent}/{year}/{month}/{day}/{type}/{natural identifier}/{level 1…}/{point in time}/{version}/{language}
ELI template components
Name
Comments
eli
Jurisdiction
Jurisdiction
Use of DCTERMS.ISO3166: 2 alpha country codes, e.g. ‘LU’
For international organisations, the registered domain name can be used: e.g. ‘EU’ or ‘WTO’
Agent
Administrative hierarchical structure, e.g. federal States, constitutional court, parliament, etc.
Subagent
Administrative hierarchical substructure, e.g. the responsible ministry
Reference
Year
YYYY
Various interpretations allowed depending on countries’ requirements, e.g. date of signature or date of publication, etc.
Month
MM
Day
DD
Type
Nature of the act (law, decree, draft bill, etc.)
Various interpretations depending on countries’ requirements
Subtype
Subcategory of an act depending on countries’ requirements (e.g. corrigendum)
Domain
Can be used if acts are classified by themes, e.g. codes
Natural identifier
Reference or number to distinguish an act of same nature signed or published on the same day
Subdivision
Level 1
Reference to a subdivision of an act, e.g. Article 15
Level 2
Reference to a smaller subdivision than level 1, e.g. Article 15.2
Level 3
Reference to a smaller subdivision than level 2
Level n
Reference to a smaller subdivision
Point in time
Point in time
YYYYMMDD
Version of the act as valid at a given date
Version
Version
To distinguish between original act or consolidated version
Language
Language
To differ different official expressions of the same act
Use of DCTERMS.ISO3166: 3 alpha
2.   
Properties describing each legislative act
While a structured URI can already identify acts using a set of defined components, the attribution of additional metadata established in the framework of a shared syntax will set the basis to promote interchange and enhance interoperability between legal information systems. By identifying the metadata describing the essential characteristics of a resource, Member States will be able to reuse relevant information processed by others for their own needs, without having to put into place additional information systems.
Therefore, while Member States are free to use their own metadata schema, they are encouraged to follow and use the ELI metadata standards with shared but extensible authority tables, which permit to meet specific requirements. The ELI metadata schema is intended to be used in combination with customised metadata schemas.
For the data exchange to become more efficient, ELI metadata elements may be serialised in compliance with the W3C Recommendation ‘RDFa in XHTML: Syntax and Processing’.
(a)   
Metadata
European Legislation Identifier (ELI)
Field name
Description
Field identifier
Cardinality
Data type
Comments
Legal resource (language independent)
Any type of legal resource published in an Official Journal at the work level
Unique identifier
The number or string used to uniquely identify the resource ELI URI schema
id_document
1…*
String
See URI proposal
URI schema
Reference to the URI schema used
uri_schema
1
String
URI of the URI template schema
Local identifier
Local identifier: the unique identifier used in a local reference system
id_local
0…*
String
Act’s reference in the EU’s, country’s or region’s own terminology, e.g. CELEX id, national id
Type of legislation
The type of a legal resource (e.g. directive, règlement grand ducal, law, règlement ministeriel, draft proposition, Parliamentary act, etc.)
type_document
0…1
Authority table resource types
For European law based on authority table:
Resource types = class names in the OP’s common data model (CDM). For national and regional laws specified on the appropriate level.
Types of legislation are specific for each jurisdiction
Territorial application
Geographical scope of applicability of the resource (e.g. EU, country/Member State, region, etc.)
relevant_for
0…*
Authority table
Individual administrative units, taxonomy of possible values to be defined (NUTS taxonomy, two or more levels)
Agent/authority
Organisation(s) responsible for the resource
The European institution, other bodies or Member State or regional bodies, who initiated/adopted the legal resource (e.g. European Parliament, Luxembourg Government, Rheinland-Pfalz Parliament, etc.)
agent_document
0…*
Authority table corporate body
Based on authority tables:
Corporate bodies/countries, if necessary extended to cover regional agents.
Record project
Subagent/subauthority
Person or suborganisation primarily responsible for the resource (e.g. name of ministry if applicable)
Service
0…*
String
Text indicating responsible ministries, DGs, etc.
Subject
The subject of this legal resource
is_about
0…*
Reference to Eurovoc (concept_eurovoc)
Eurovoc, national and regional extensions might be needed for areas not currently covered
Date of document
The official adoption or signature date of the document
date_document
0…1
Date
Format: YYYY-MM-DD
Date of publication
Date in which this legal resource was officially published/ratified
date_publication
0…1
Date
Format: YYYY-MM-DD
Depending on the Member State, the date of publication or ratification (signature of the responsible organisation)
Date entering in force
Applicable date for the resource, if known and unique. Otherwise use controlled vocabulary such as ‘multiple’, ‘unspecified-future’, etc.
date_entry-in-force
0…*
Date or string
Format: YYYY-MM-DD or string ‘unspecified’
Date no longer in force
Applicable date starting from which the resource is not in force anymore
date_no-longer-in force
0…*
Date or string
Format: YYYY-MM-DD or string ‘unspecified’
Status
Status of the legal resource (in force, not in force, partially applicable, implicitly revoked, explicitly revoked, repealed, expired, suspended, etc.)
Status
0…*
String
Free text
Related to
Reference to draft bills, judgments, press release, etc.
related_to
0…*
URI identifier to other legal resource(s)
Changed by
Legal resource changed (amended or replaced) by another legal resource (typically a newer version, replacement can be completely or partially)
changed_by
0…*
URI identifier to other legal resource(s)
Basis for
Legal resource (enabling act) enables another one (secondary legislation)
basis_for
0…*
URI identifier to other legal resource(s)
Enabling act/empowering act
Based on
Legal resource is based on another legal resource (e.g. a Treaty article, a provision in the constitution, framework legislation, enabling act, etc.)
based_on
0…*
URI identifier to other legal resource(s)
Cites
References to other legal resources mentioned in the resource
Cites
0…*
URI identifier to other legal resource(s)
Consolidates
Reference to the consolidated version(s) of the resource
consolidates
0…1
URI identifier to other legal resource(s)
Transposes
References to other legal resources that allow Member States to adopt relevant legislation
transposes
0…*
URI identifier to other legal resource(s)
Transposed by
References to other legal resources that have been adopted to comply with a framework legislation
transposed_by
0…*
URI identifier to other legal resource(s)
Interpretation (expression)
Expression belongs to a work
Association of the expression with its work
belongs_to
1
URI of work
Language
Language version of the expression
language_expression
1
String
Based on authority table:
Languages. Record project
Title
Title of the expression
title_expression
1
String
The name given to the resource, usually by the creator or publisher
Short title
Established short title of the expression (if any)
short_title_expression
0…1
String
Alias
Alternative title of the expression (if any)
title_alternative
0…1
String
Publication reference
Reference to the Official Journal or other publication in which the legal resource is published, identified by a suitable mechanism
published_in
0…*
String
Description of the act
A suitable free text description of the legal resource in the expression’s language (e.g. using the abstract)
description
0…1
String
Format (manifestation) link or description to the physical object
Manifestation belongs to an expression
Association of the manifestation with its expression
manifests
0…1
URI of expression
If a link to a file is given, then the manifests element must be present
Link to file
Link to the concrete file (can be a local link)
link_manifestation
0…*
Any URI
Publisher
The entity (e.g. agency including unit/branch/section) responsible for making the resource available in its present form, such as a publishing house, a university department, or a corporate entity
publisher
0…*
String
In a given country often a constant
Bold and underlined: mandatory field.
Bold: recommended.
(b)   
Ontology
Ontology is an ‘explicit, formal specification of a shared conceptualisation’ and represents a formal description of a set of concepts and the relationships in a given domain. By describing the properties of legislation and their relationships between different concepts, a shared understanding is made possible and ambiguities between terms can be avoided. Being a formal specification, it is directly machine-processable.
ELI itself builds on the well-established model for ‘Functional requirements for bibliographic records’ (FRBR, http://archive.ifla.org/VII/s13/frbr/), aligned with other current standardisation initiatives in the field. FRBR distinguishes between the concepts of ‘work’ (distinct intellectual or artistic creation), ‘expression’ (the intellectual or artistic realisation of a work) and the ‘manifestation’ (the physical embodiment of an expression).
ELI describes legal resources following the same abstraction:
3.   
On national implementation
3.1.   
The national ELI coordinator
1.
Each Member State using the ELI must appoint a national ELI coordinator. One country must not have more than one ELI coordinator.
2.
The national ELI coordinator is responsible for:
(a)
reporting on the progress of the ELI implementation;
(b)
defining the applicable URI template(s) and communicating them to the Publications Office of the European Union;
(c)
documenting available metadata and its relationship to the ELI metadata schema (if applicable);
(d)
sharing and disseminating information on ELI.
3.
The national ELI coordinator should provide information to be published on the ELI website, as defined in paragraph 4, information describing the way the ordinal number is composed.
3.2.   
Implementation
1.
ELI’s implementation is of national responsibility.
2.
ELI may optionally also be used within physical manifestation of the legislative act itself, to facilitate easy referral.
4.   
The ELI website
1.
An ELI website should be established; this website should be part of the EUR-Lex portal.
2.
The website should contain:
(a)
information on the format and use of ELI. Regarding the format it should contain:
(i)
the formatting rules as described in paragraph 1;
(ii)
(a reference to) the list with abbreviations of participating countries;
(iii)
technical information;
(b)
information on the availability of metadata and ontology, as set out in paragraph 2;
(c)
information on the national ELI coordinators: their role and responsibilities, but also contact information per country.
5.   
ELI within the EU
1.
The ELI coordinator for the EU is the Publications Office of the European Union.
2.
Where appropriate in the Annex ‘country’ or ‘Member State’ should be read ‘EU.’

Summary:
European Legislation Identifier (ELI)
SUMMARY OF:
Council conclusions inviting the introduction of the European Legislation Identifier (ELI)
WHAT IS THE AIM OF THE CONCLUSIONS?
Legislation is widely available online and accessible in various digital formats. However, the way in which legal information is organised and classified varies across different legal systems. The conclusions address this issue by endorsing the European Legislation Identifier (ELI), an initiative to ensure that citizens and legal professionals get improved access to information on legislation, be it at regional, national or EU level.
ELI makes it easier to access and share this information, thus contributing to the EU’s 
common area of freedom, security and justice
.
KEY POINTS
The conclusions invite EU countries to adopt the ELI system, so that information on EU and national legislation is described in a harmonised way across legislation systems. This will improve discovery, access and reuse of information about legislation for citizens and professional users.
How does ELI work?
ELI is based on:
the use of a unique Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) to identify a web location for legal information;
a set of structured metadata used to describe EU and national legal information;
the use of a common language to exchange legal information in machine-readable formats for better reuse
1
.
The ELI system was developed to standardise legal communication to promote interchange and to enhance interoperability between legal information systems at EU and national level, while maintaining the specificities of each country’s legal and legislative system.
What should EU countries do in order to introduce ELI?
The introduction of ELI is optional, voluntary and gradual. In order to adopt ELI, legislation publishers should:
assign ELI identifiers and metadata to their legislation;
publish the ELI metadata assigned to their legislation in a specific format.
ELI implementers are invited to appoint a national ELI coordinator and to share information on their respective ELI implementations. This information is to be made publicly available on the ELI website hosted in the EUR-Lex portal: 
http://eurlex.europa.eu/eli
.
2017 Council conclusions
In November 2017, the Council adopted a new set of conclusions on the ELI building on the conclusions of 2012.
These conclusions provide a 
progress report
 on the ELI initiative:
the ELI system has been deployed in a number of national legislation publishing systems,
ELI has been applied to EU legislation which is published in the 
Official Journal of the European Union
 and the EUR-Lex portal operated by the 
Publications Office of the EU
,
the Publications Office, acting in accordance with Decision 
2009/496/EC
, has integrated ELI into the 
EUR-Lex portal
. The Publications Office hosts and maintains on its EUR-Lex portal a register of national ELI coordinators, information on the format and use of ELI in the participating countries, and other useful documentation.
The conclusions call on the 
Council working party
 on 
e-law
, to take a series of measures aimed at driving forward the ELI system and in particular on:
the 
ELI Task Force (TF)
 to define ELI-related specifications and ensure their future development;
the 
expert group of the working party on 
e-Law
 on ELI
 to drive forward this initiative by: 
allowing EU countries to share experiences and good practice on the deployment of ELI;
inform EU countries about the work of the ELI TF;
report to the working party on 
e-Law
 EU countries’ concerns and needs in the light of ELI;
report the content of the meetings to the working party on 
e-Law
.
An annex contains the main elements of information and references:
on national implementation;
elements of ELI;
ELI reference sites.
BACKGROUND
For more information, see:
About ELI
 (
Publications Office
).
KEY TERMS
Reuse:
 the possibility for citizens and companies to reuse material free of charge, even for commercial purposes, and without having to request permission to do so. The information can be reproduced, adapted, translated, etc. This reuse may be subject to conditions. For example, the European Commission’s general reuse policy requires those who reuse information to acknowledge its source and to ensure that its original meaning is not distorted. There are, however, certain exceptions to the Commission’s general reuse policy such as logos, software, etc.
MAIN DOCUMENT
Council conclusions
 inviting the introduction of the European Legislation Identifier (ELI) (OJ C 325, 
26.10.2012
, 
pp. 3-11
)
RELATED DOCUMENTS
Council conclusions
 of 
6 November 2017
 on the European Legislation Identifier (OJ C 441, 
22.12.2017
, 
pp. 8-12
)
Decision 
2009/496/EC, Euratom
 of the European Parliament, the Council, the Commission, the Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions of 
26 June 2009
 on the organisation and operation of the Publications Office of the European Union (OJ L 168, 
30.6.2009
, 
pp. 41-47
)
Successive amendments to Decision 2009/496/EC, Euratom have been incorporated in the original text. This 
consolidated version
 is of documentary value only.
last update 
9.2.2018

--- DANISH ---

Document:
$da_document

Summary:
$da_summary