The European Commission's translation service (DG Translation ) outsources part of its translation work to private contractors. The links and guidelines listed here help them to produce high-quality translations on EU matters.

General EU information

EU institutions

• Names of institutions, bodies and agencies of the European Union
• List of directorates-general and departments of the European Commission
• List of EU Commissioners
• Council configurations
• European Parliament committees
• Committee of the Regions — commissions

European legislation

• EU legislation — databases and information about legislative procedures
• EUR-Lex — EU law currently in force
• PreLex
• Official documents from EU institutions

Contractor guides

Guidelines

• Guide for contractors translating for the European Commission [391 KB]
• Translation checklist [206 KB]
• Quality criteria for translating into German [19 KB]

EU terminology

• IATE — EU terminology database
• TARIC codes — online customs tariff database
• EU Budget online
• Eurovoc — multilingual thesaurus covering EU policy fields
• RAMON — Eurostat's statistical metadata website (including combined nomenclature)

Style guides

• Using style guides — in what order? [63 KB]
• Joint practical guide for EU legislative drafting — for German
• Legislative drafting in German [521 KB]
• Manual of precedents for acts established within the Council of the European Union [639 KB]
• Interinstitutional Style Guide — for German
• German translation style guide [4 MB] — DG Translation in-house styleguide
  • Explanations [81 KB] to the German translation style guide

 

Language-specific information

Models and templates

• Spelling reform [17 KB] — summary of spelling rules for EU institutions
• Austrian expressions [91 KB] — mandatory use

Useful links (national legislation / authorities / expert bodies)

• see Language resources and useful links for German