A commonly found acronym in the world of public sector tendering is OJEU, and it stands for the Official Journal of the European Union. Formerly the Official Journal of the European Community, the OJEU is the international publication in which all tenders that are valued above a certain financial threshold, according to EU legislation, must be published. 

The legislation which dictates the threshold, and therefore which tenders must be listed in the OJEU, applies to local authorities, NHS trusts, Central Government Departments and Education Establishments across the EU. The legislation also covers any organisations or projects which receive public money. 

The OJEU is published in the 22 official languages of the EU member states, and also Irish when required. The Journal has been updated and released every working day since the Treaty of Nice came into being on the 1st February 2003. 

The Journal itself comprises of 3 distinct parts, the L Series, C Series and the supplementary S Series. The L Series contains the EU legislation and the C Series contains information and notices including judgements from the European Courts, expressions of interest in EU programmes and projects and public contracts for food aid.

Perhaps of most interest in this context is the S Series, which contains invitations to tender. This section of the OJEU sees around 160,000 invitations published per year in areas such as:

• Contracts for work, supplies and services from the public sector
• Contracts from EU institutions
• Contracts from utilities companies
• European Development fund contracts
• Phare, Tacis and other contracts from Central / Eastern Europe
• European Economic Area contracts
• Government Procurement Agreement
• Notices concerning European economic interest groups
• Public contracts for air services

The OJEU is published by the Publications Office of the European Union which is based in Luxembourg, however the name 'journal' is probably a little misleading about the nature of the publication. All of the tenders released in the OJEU can now be fully accessed online through tender portals and tender alert services.