---
title: "EEC Council: Regulation No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community"
id: 5561a7e2-4cc9-48aa-a577-25808fec8e2d
authority: eu
place: "European Union"
applies_also_from: []
kind: regulation
in_force: true
publisher_url: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:31958R0001
attribution: "© European Union, https://eur-lex.europa.eu"
solon_url: https://solon.orangecat.ch/law/5561a7e2-4cc9-48aa-a577-25808fec8e2d
language: en
in_force_from: 2013-07-01
date_basis: publisher
status: consolidated
source_url: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:01958R0001-20130701
read_on: 2026-11-08
sha256: b18ec8736fb3253e49d32c7cf8608f1713f3607cef4fc850cc952bcf8ff9521e
provisions: 8
---

# EEC Council: Regulation No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community

## Article 1 {#art_1}

The official languages and the working languages of the institutions of the Union shall be Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish.

## Article 2 {#art_2}

Documents which a Member State or a person subject to the jurisdiction of a Member State sends to institutions of the Community may be drafted in any one of the official languages selected by the sender. The reply shall be drafted in the same language.

## Article 3 {#art_3}

Documents which an institution of the Community sends to a Member State or to a person subject to the jurisdiction of a Member State shall be drafted in the language of such State.

## Article 4 {#art_4}

Regulations and other documents of general application shall be drafted in the official languages.

## Article 5 {#art_5}

The Official Journal of the European Union shall be published in the official languages.

## Article 6 {#art_6}

The institutions of the Community may stipulate in their rules of procedure which of the languages are to be used in specific cases.

## Article 7 {#art_7}

The languages to be used in the proceedings of the Court of Justice shall be laid down in its rules of procedure.

## Article 8 {#art_8}

If a Member State has more than one official language, the language to be used shall, at the request of such State, be governed by the general rules of its law.