The Community acquis or acquis communautaire (; ), sometimes called the EU acquis, and often shortened to acquis, is the accumulated legislation, legal acts and court decisions that constitute the body of European Union law. The term is French, "acquis" meaning "that which has been acquired or obtained", and “communautaire” meaning "of the community".
Chapters During the process of the enlargement of the European Union, the acquis was divided into 31 chapters for the purpose of negotiation between the EU and the candidate states for membership for the fifth enlargement (the ten that joined in 2004 plus Romania and Bulgaria which joined in 2007). These chapters were:
Free movement of goods Free movement of persons Freedom to provide services Free movement of capital Company law Competition policy Agriculture Fisheries Transport policy Taxation Economic and Monetary Union Statistics Social policy and employment Energy Industrial policy Small and medium-sized enterprises Science and research Education and training Telecommunication and information technologies Culture and audio-visual policy Regional policy and co-ordination of structural instruments Environment Consumers and health protection Cooperation in the field of Justice and Home Affairs Customs union External relations Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) Financial control Financial and budgetary provisions Institutions Others
Beginning with the negotiations with Croatia (which joined in 2013), the acquis is split up into 35 chapters instead, with the purpose of better balancing the chapters: (dividing the most difficult ones into separate chapters for easier negotiation, uniting some easier chapters, moving some policies between chapters, as well as renaming a few of them in the process)
Free movement of goods Freedom of movement for workers Right of establishment and freedom to provide services Free movement of capital Public procurement Company law Intellectual property law Competition policy Financial services Information society and media Agriculture and rural development Food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary policy Fisheries Transport policy Energy Taxation Economic and monetary policy Statistics Social policy and employment (including anti-discrimination and equal opportunities for women and men) Enterprise and industrial policy Trans-European networks Regional policy and co-ordination of structural instruments Judiciary and fundamental rights Justice, freedom and security Science and research Education and culture Environment Consumer and health protection Customs union External relations Foreign, security and defence policy Financial control Financial and budgetary provisions Institutions Other issues
Correspondence between chapters of the 5th and the 6th Enlargement:
5th Enlargement 6th Enlargement 1. Free movement of goods 1. Free movement of goods 7. Intellectual property law 2. Free movement of persons 2. Freedom of movement for workers 3. Right of establishment and freedom to provide services 3. Freedom to provide services 9. Financial services 4. Free movement of capital 4. Free movement of capital 5. Company law 6. Company law 6. Competition policy 8. Competition policy 5. Public procurement 7. Agriculture 11. Agriculture and rural development 12. Food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary policy 8. Fisheries 13. Fisheries 9. Transport policy 14. Transport policy 21. Trans-European networks (one half of it) 10. Taxation 16. Taxation 11. Economic and Monetary Union 17. Economic and monetary policy 12. Statistics 18. Statistics 13. Social policy and employment 19. Social policy and employment(including anti-discrimination and equal opportunities for women and men) 14. Energy 15. Energy 21. Trans-European networks (one half of it) 15. Industrial policy 20. Enterprise and industrial policy 16. Small and medium-sized enterprises 17. Science and research 25. Science and research 18. Education and training 26. Education and culture10. Information society and media 19. Telecommunication and information technologies 20. Culture and audio-visual policy 21. Regional policy and co-ordination of structural instruments 22. Regional policy and co-ordination of structural instruments 22. Environment 27. Environment 23. Consumer and health protection 28. Consumer and health protection 24. Cooperation in the field of Justice and Home Affairs 23. Judiciary and fundamental rights 24. Justice, freedom and security 25. Customs union 29. Customs union 26. External relations 30. External relations 27. Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) 31. Foreign, security and defence policy 28. Financial control 32. Financial control 29. Financial and budgetary provisions 33. Financial and budgetary provisions 30. Institutions 34. Institutions 31. Others 35. Other issues
Such negotiations usually involved agreeing transitional periods before new member states needed to implement the laws of the European Union fully and before they and their citizens acquired full rights under the acquis.
Terminology The term acquis is also used to describe laws adopted under the Schengen Agreement, prior to its integration into the European Union legal order by the Treaty of Amsterdam, in which case one speaks of the Schengen acquis. In relation to consumer law and consumer protection, the phrase "consumer acquis" is also used.Jansen, N. and Zimmermann, R. (2018), Commentaries on European Contract Laws, Preface, Oxford: Oxford University Press, accessed on 8 August 2025
It has been used to describe the achievements of the Council of Europe (an international organisation unconnected with the European Union):Section 12, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Resolution 1290
It has also been applied to the body of "principles, norms and commitments" of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE):Intervention by Ambassador Aleksi Härkönen, Permanent Representative of Finland to the OSCE , Annual Security Review Conference.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) introduced the concept of the OECD Acquis in its "Strategy for enlargement and outreach", May 2004.
See also Official Journal of the European Union Primacy of European Union law Subsidiarity
References
External links
EUR-Lex: European Union Law. JRC-Acquis, Aligned multilingual parallel corpus: 23,000 Acquis-related texts per language, available in 22 languages. Total size: 1 Billion words. Translation Memory of the EU-Acquis: Up to 1 Million translation units each, for 231 language pairs.