General Information
Name of the solution: Ref2link package (under EUPL)
Solution's owner: DG DIGIT, European Commission, Europe
Description: Ref2Link automates the detection of references and generates hyperlinks based on dynamic and customisable rules. You can use Ref2Link as a standalone tool or as a building block in IT systems such as LEOS.
Ref2Link supports out-of-the-box multilingual detection of EU legal instruments. It enforces the European Legislation Identifier and European Case Law Identifier standards and other references if needed. National public administrations may adapt the default detection rules to meet their own specific requirements. The code will be made available under the free European Union Public Licence (EUPL).
Type of solution: Legal Interoperability tool
Ref2link package (under EUPL) implements the following:
| Principles | Interoperability layers | Conceptual model |
|---|---|---|
| ✅ Subsidiarity and proportionality | ✅ Integrated public service governance | ✅ External information sources and services |
| ✅ Openness | ✅ Semantic interoperability | |
| ✅ Reusability | ✅ Technical Interoperability | |
| ✅ Technological neutrality | ||
| ✅ User-centricity | ||
| ✅ Multilingualism | ||
| ✅ Administrative simplification |
Ref2link package (under EUPL) implements the following recommendations as explained below:
✅ Recommendation 1 | Principle 1: Subsidiarity and proportionality
Ref2Link, through its flexible rule-based detection mechanism, allows Member States and public Institutions to adapt detected patterns and link targets to their national or domain context.
✅ Recommendation 4 | Principle 2: Openness
Ref2Link proactively supports emerging EU legal identification standards: ELI for law and ECLI for case law.
✅ Recommendation 7 | Principle 4: Reusability
Through its linked data interface, Ref2link can enrich user experience by adding meta-data from external sources to the detected references.
✅ Recommendation 8 | Principle 5: Technological neutrality
Ref2link is based on W3C or de facto web standards (XML, XHTML, JavaScript, regexp) and allows a technology neutral integration mode through web services.
✅ Recommendation 10 | Principle 6: User-centricity
Ref2link offers multiple environments allowing the user or integrator to pick up the detection rules that fit its need.
✅ Recommendation 16 | Principle 9: Multilingualism
By design, Ref2Link encompasses the multilinguism aspect. It can build rules that are language sensitive and inject a language in the generated links. Out-of-the-box detection of EU legal acts in its 24 national languages is provided.
✅ Recommendation 17 | Principle 10: Administrative simplification
When integrated, Ref2link acts as a productivity booster both for content creators and consumers. By promoting the use of reference repositories, it limits the duplication of content.
✅ Recommendation 26 | Principle 1: Integrated public service governance
Coordination among EU institutions such as OP, EC, Council, CoJ and Member states to define the Ref2Link detection and integration needs.
✅ Recommendation 32 | Interoperability layer: Semantic interoperability
By extracting legal resources identifiers, Ref2link fosters use of semantic web standards (linked data, URIs..).
✅ Recommendation 33 | Interoperability layer: Technical interoperability
Ref2link proactively supports the dissemination of ELI and ECLI standards at EU and national levels.
✅ Recommendation 45 | Conceptual model: External information sources and services
Ref2link fosters the use of external repositories by establishing direct deep links, crossing sites and domains.
