What it is
A list has an opening, a set of items, a connector before the last of them and a close. Each joint carries a mark, and the marks are doing syntax: they say whether the items are alternatives or an accumulation, and whether the enumeration is one sentence or several.
What varies is which mark sits at each joint. Items may be divided by commas or by semicolons; the point before the final connector may take a mark or none; the last item may close on a full stop, a comma or nothing at all.
The designator that labels each point, the letter or numeral and its brackets, belongs to the subdivision record; this record owns the marks between and after the items. It also holds the first of this section's attachment points: the phraseology section owns the strings that open a citation or a recital, and the comma that closes the last recital is a conventions fact, cited there and settled here.
Where the expectation comes from
House, on guide rules the issuing bodies could revise without any orthography code changing. The evidence for the two halves of the record is not equally strong, and the difference is worth carrying.
The Joint Practical Guide of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, 2015 edition, rules the preamble outright. Guideline 11 reads "EACH RECITAL SHALL BE NUMBERED", and its presentation commentary at 11.2: "Each recital starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, except the last recital, which ends with a comma." Guideline 15.3 requires each element of a list in an article to be coordinated and to relate directly to the introductory words.
The English Style Guide of the Directorate-General for Translation carries the running-text half for one body's English: at 2.5 the colon signals that an expansion, qualification, quotation or explanation follows, a list in running text among them; at 2.9 the second of two rules separates long, complex or internally punctuated items by semicolons; at 2.11 a comma comes before "etc." at the end of a series.
The split to hold on to: the recital comma rests on an opened rule, the mark between the points of a list on attestation in the instruments alone. The Joint Practical Guide was searched for a rule on the semicolon or comma between points and none was found, so none is claimed here.
Consequences for translation
The conversion lives in one place and the temptation to correct lives in another.
- The disjunctive list is where the mark converts; the enumerative list is where it does not. In one regulation opened in both versions, the alternatives at Article 2(3) close on a semicolon before the English connector and on a comma before the Dutch one, while the accumulation at Article 2(1) runs on semicolons with a final full stop in both.
- The comma closing the last recital does not convert either. It stands in both versions because an interinstitutional presentation rule reaches across language versions, so it is not an English habit, and replacing it with a full stop corrects a rule rather than a slip.
- The checkable half and the weighable half come apart cleanly. Which mark precedes the connector can be verified without judgement. Whether a list survives as a list, or its ties are rebuilt into running text, is graded, and no rule opened here settles it.
- A rule about a mark is not a rule about a language. The semicolon rule at 2.9 is conditioned on the items being long, complex or internally punctuated, so a series of three short noun phrases falls outside it in the same English.
Examples
EN>NL
- Source: (a) public documents issued by the authorities of a third country; or
- Target: a) openbare documenten die door de autoriteiten van een derde land worden afgegeven, of
- Comment: Regulation (EU) 2016/1191, Article 2(3), in two official versions opened together. The English closes the point with a semicolon before the connector and the Dutch with a comma: the same instrument, the same provision, a different mark. Nothing in either language compels either choice, and carrying the semicolon across is an institutional error rather than a Dutch one.
NL>EN
- Source: ... gaat deze verordening niet verder dan nodig is om deze doelstellingen te verwezenlijken, / HEBBEN DE VOLGENDE VERORDENING VASTGESTELD:
- Target: ... this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve those objectives, / HAVE ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:
- Comment: The last recital of the same act and the enacting formula after it. Here the comma is kept rather than converted, because Guideline 11.2 rules the presentation of recitals in every language version. One mark in this act converts and another does not, and only knowing which rule covers which tells them apart.
References
- Joint Practical Guide of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission for persons involved in the drafting of European Union legislation, second edition 2015. Guideline 11 with its presentation commentary 11.2, Guideline 15.3 and Guideline 15.4.
- English Style Guide. Directorate-General for Translation, European Commission, eighth edition January 2016, file consulted 21 November 2025. Sections 2.5 (Colon), 2.9 (Semicolon) and 2.11 (Comma).
- Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2016 on promoting the free movement of citizens by simplifying the requirements for presenting certain public documents in the European Union, English and Dutch language versions. Article 2(1) and Article 2(3), the last recital of the preamble and the enacting formula following it.