ELI

ELI – European Legislation Identifier

The concept of the identifier is described in the Council conclusions inviting the introduction of the European Legislation Identifier (ELI) (2012/C 325/02) and the Council conclusions on the European Legislation Identifier (2017/C 441/05). The concept involves the creation of a common system for the identification of legislation and its metadata, which will complement Member States’ legal information systems. It also introduces a new standard of access to legal information, however states implementing ELI will continue to operate their Official Journals and Legal Gazettes as they see fit.

Structure of the applicable URI template (pillar 1)

URI templates are strings made up of fixed and variable parts:

  1. Fixed part:
    https://eli.gov.pl/eli/
  2. Variable part:
    { journal } / { year } / { position } / { ogl | tj | uj } / pol / { pdf | html }
    • { journal } - symbol of a journal, e.g.: DU – Dziennik Ustaw (Official Journal of the Republic of Poland), MP – Monitor Polski (Legal Gazette of the Republic of Poland)
    • { year } - year from 1918 to the current year
    • { position } - position in a given journal, starting from 1
    • ogl - mark of a published text in the Government Legislation Centre (RCL),
      tj - mark of a consolidated text in the RCL,
      uj - mark of a codified text in the Online Database of Polish Legislation (ISAP),
    • pol - Polish language version
    • pdf - text in PDF format,
      html - text in HTML format

Examples of addresses

logo ELIMinisterstwo Cyfryzacji

Benefits of ELI implementation

  1. The introduction of ELI will entail greater interoperability of information systems of Member States and European institutions as well as easier access to legal information published in national, European and global legal information systems.
  2. Citizens, businesses and administration will be able to consult national and EU legislation more quickly, openly, directly and transparently.
  3. The identifier will also facilitate the exchange of legal information between the Member States and increase the possibilities of reusing collected data.
  4. It will also make searching across legislation in different legal systems more efficient for citizens and legal professionals.
  5. The effectiveness of legal publishing workflows will be improved, thus leading to better quality, reliability of legislation as well as cost savings.
  6. ELI will allow the smart reuse of legal data and create opportunities for the development of new services by the private sector, thus contributing to the development of the Digital Single Market.
  7. The implementation of Regulation (EU) 2018/1724 of the European Parliament and the Council of 2 October 2018 establishing a single digital gateway to provide access to information, to procedures and to assistance and problem-solving services and amending Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012 will be also facilitated. In line with Article 12 of this Regulation, the EU will provide translation of certain information into other EU languages. Even though the Regulation does not list legislative acts explicitly, quoting translations of such acts would be very useful in some situations (e.g. the Act – Public Procurement Law or the Act – Business Law). ELI identifiers make it easy to describe different language versions of a legislative act (e.g. http://dane.gov.pl/eli/DU/2018/1000/ogl/eng) and it is possible to indicate in metadata that a given text version is not authentic.
  8. If metadata are added appropriately, reporting obligations will also be easier to fulfil. For example, according to Article 70 of the Act of 6 March 2018 – Business Law, ministers in charge of government administration departments shall review on an ongoing basis, within their remit, the functioning of normative acts relative to launching, carrying out or terminating economic activity and submit annual reports to the Council of Ministers on any follow-up measures taken in the previous calendar year. If legislation metadata are supplemented with information on the relevant government administration department and with an additional marker indicating that the act concerns launching, carrying out or terminating economic activity, the process of choosing applicable acts that meet these criteria and fall within the remit of respective ministers could be automated.