English Style Guide

18.10European Development Fund. The European Development Fund (EDF) finances most of the EU’s cooperation with developing countries. The Fund is fed by the Member States; it does not come under the general EU budget, though a heading has been reserved for it in the budget since 1993. The EDF is not a permanent fund; a new one is concluded every five years or so.

19 MEMBER STATES

19.1In English alphabetical order the Member States are:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom

List them in this order in all texts other than legislation.

19.2In legislation, list Member States in protocol order, i.e. absolute alphabetical order based on the name of the Member State in the country’s language — see section 7.1.1 of the Interinstitutional Style Guide. For countries listed in tables, see section 7.1.2 of the Interinstitutional Style Guide.

19.3For abbreviations, again see section 7.1.1 of the Interinstitutional Style Guide.

19.4For postal-code conventions, see section 9 of the Interinstitutional Style Guide.

19.5In English, the long forms of country names (full names) should not be used in any but the most formal contexts (unless there is no accepted short form). Even in international treaties, they should be used sparingly, e.g. in the title.

19.6See the Country Compendium for details of individual Member States.

19.7For other countries, see Annex A5 to the Interinstitutional Style Guide.

PERMANENT REPRESENTATIONS/REPRESENTATIVES

19.8Titles. For la Représentation permanente du Danemark etc. write the Danish Permanent Representation. Use Permanent Representative only for the person holding that office. For correspondence, see 10.3.

19.9The Permanent Representatives Committee is commonly known under its French acronym Coreper. In documents intended for the general public, however, spell out what the acronym means when using it for the first time.

Coreper has been split into Coreper 2 (the Permanent Representatives themselves) and Coreper 1 (deputies) to speed up its work; these designations are only likely to arise in internal Commission papers and may be used without explanation in English translations of them.

English Style Guide

NATIONAL PARLIAMENTS

19.10Use the country’s own names for its parliamentary institutions only if you are sure your readers will be familiar with them. Otherwise, write the … Parliament, inserting the country adjective. In the case of bicameral systems, write the lower/upper house of the … Parliament if it needs to be specified. However, if a particular parliament is referred to repeatedly, the non-English name may be used, provided it is explained the first time it is introduced. For example, write the Bundestag (the lower house of the German Parliament) and thereafter the Bundestag in a text where the term occurs many times.

19.11Ireland. Note that the qualifier ‘Éireann’ is not needed when referring to the Dáil or the Seanad.

19.12Parliamentarians. Write Member of the … Parliament, specifying which house if necessary. MP should be used only if the context supports the meaning. Avoid national abbreviations of such titles (e.g. MdB in Germany).

19.13Political parties. Where possible and meaningful, always translate the names of political parties, as this may be important to the reader, but add the national abbreviation in brackets and use this in the rest of the document:

The German Social Democratic Party (SPD) had serious reservations on this issue. The SPD had in the past …

See, however, the section on Belgium in the Country Compendium.

NATIONAL JUDICIAL BODIES

19.14Use the suggested translations in the Country Compendium. If necessary, insert the original-language form in brackets following the first mention.

NATIONAL LEGISLATION

19.15For countries that produce their legislation in English and others that systematically provide translations into English, you should use the terms they use. Otherwise, see the Country Compendium for suggested terms or, if you cannot find what you are looking for, follow the tips below.

19.16For more information about legislation in Europe, see the Publications Office’s guide Access to legislation in Europe.

19.17Translating the titles of legislation. These can often best be translated into English by inverting the word order so that they appear in the form customary in common law countries. Apostrophes and commas do not normally appear in such titles in English.

Examples:

Loi concernant les chèques, Cheques Act