This document is an excerpt from the EUR-Lex website
Legal acts
In this section, you can find the main types of EU legal acts: regulations, directives, decisions, recommendations and opinions. You can also search for certain other documents issued by EU institutions or bodies (for example communications of the European Commission, reports of the European Court of Auditors).
You will find these documents accompanied by a rich legal analysis and links to related information (validity of the act, dates of effect, related procedures, interpretations by the Court of Justice of the European Union, and much more).
How to search in this section
The left-hand side of this page gives access to several search tools.
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Search in legal acts redirects to an advanced search form that offers many options. Searches will be performed only within the remit of the “Legal acts” section. On the top of the search form, you have the option to: (i) limit your search to legislation in force; (ii) limit your search to basic acts; or (iii) exclude corrigenda.
By clicking on “Other” in the “Document reference” tab you can choose among a wide range of type of documents.
- The Directory of legal acts contains all the documents of this section organised in 20 main domains and several subdomains.
- The Recently published search gives access to all the documents published in this section in the last 14 days.
- Legal acts – statistics provides yearly and monthly figures on legal acts that can be sorted by several criteria.
EU legal acts are: regulations, directives, decisions, recommendations and opinions (Article 288 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union).
- Regulations are binding in their entirety and directly applicable in all EU Member States.
- Directives set binding objectives to be achieved by the Member States to which they are addressed. The Member States are free to choose the manner they see fit to achieve those objectives.
- Decisions are also binding in their entirety. Decisions that specify those to whom they are addressed are binding only on them.
- Recommendations and opinions are non-binding acts.
Legislative acts are legal acts adopted by ordinary legislative procedure or special legislative procedures.
Delegated acts are non-legislative acts that supplement or amend certain non-essential parts of legislative acts. They are adopted by the Commission based on explicit delegation granted in a legislative act and in consultation with expert groups.
Implementing acts are non-legislative acts that ensure uniform conditions for implementing legally binding EU acts across all EU Member States. They are adopted by the Commission (or exceptionally the Council) after it consults committees comprising experts from the EU Member States.
List of main legal acts based on the Treaties to be found in this section
|
Type of act |
Binding force |
Adopted by |
|
Regulation |
Legally binding | Council and Parliament Council Parliament European Central Bank |
|
Delegated Regulation |
Legally binding | Commission |
|
Implementing Regulation |
Legally binding | Commission Council |
|
Directive |
Legally binding | Council and Parliament Council |
|
Delegated Directive |
Legally binding | Commission |
|
Implementing Directive |
Legally binding | Commission Council |
|
Decision |
Legally binding | Council and Parliament Council Parliament Commission European Council European Central Bank |
|
Delegated Decision |
Legally binding | Commission |
|
Implementing Decision |
Legally binding | Commission Council |
|
Recommendation |
Non-binding | Council Commission European Central Bank |
|
Guideline |
Legally binding | European Central Bank |
|
Opinion* |
Non-binding | Commission Parliament Council Court of Auditors European Central Bank |
* Please note that opinions issued during the EU legislative process are not part of this group. They can be found in the sections “Preparatory documents” and “Law-making procedures” of EUR-Lex.