As we have established in previous posts, The Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU, formerly OJEC) is published each working day in each of the European Union's twenty langauges.

This obviously presents its own set of issues, which we will come to later.

As to the structure of the journal, it consists of three seperate sections or 'series' as they are called - Information and notices, Legislation and Public procurement.

Any entreprenuers out there who are thinking of  trying to win public sector tenders there are three kinds of notice to focus upon - these are pre-information notices, invitations to tender and contract awards. It is within these categories that the opportunities for each sector are outlined.

Common problems with the official journal

The sheer scope and complexity of the OJEU obviously brings with it certain difficulties. Most commonly:
 

• Due to the sheer volume of opportunities on offer, it can be difficult to locate those tenders which directly relate to your business needs and capabilities.
• Many services and sectors overlap, therefore it can be difficult to locate individual categories within the journal that you may wish to focus on.
• Translation issues - Most OJEU notices are submitted in the language of the country where the tenders have originated in. The service which is used to translate these tenders is automated directly from the source language. This can led to confusion over the exact nature of the opportunities on offer.

Thankfully, there are a number of services which can be used to decode the OJEU and provide you with tools to obtain the information you require. We would highly recommend utilising one of these (even on a short free trial basis), in order to ensure that no potential business is missed!This is just a top level overview of the basic structure of the OJEU. If anyone has any other insights into the document, please don't hesitate to comment.