Corrigendum 16: "ingredients" stays in English

• On 26 June 2026 the Official Journal published (L 2026/90520) corrigendum 16 to Regulation (EC) 1223/2009. It corrects Article 19(1), point (g), on page 73 of OJ L 342 of 22 December 2009.
• It corrects a single word: the term that must precede the ingredient list on the pack. Four language versions had translated it, and point (g) requires the English term 'ingredients'.
• It affects the Bulgarian, Latvian, Maltese and Slovenian versions. The English and Spanish versions are unaffected.
• In all four, a label printed to its own language version no longer matches the corrected text. Slovenia is the only case where what disappears is an option: its text allowed sestavine or ingredients, and now only the second.
• This is not a slow clean-up. Eight months earlier, in October 2025, another corrigendum did the same to five other versions — Greek, French, Portuguese, Romanian and Croatian. Between them that is nine language versions corrected over the same word, and none of the fourteen earlier corrigenda had touched that point.
• This post describes what the published act says. It is not regulatory advice.

1. The act at a glance

A corrigendum is the smallest document the Official Journal publishes, and it almost always goes unnoticed. This one reads:

The R(16) in the CELEX number is not decorative: the R(nn) suffix is the sequential number of the corrigendum to that act, so this is the sixteenth. A regulation carrying sixteen published corrigenda is not a careless text but a living one, existing today in twenty-four language versions — Croatian joined with the 2013 accession, in a separate special edition — where every version is equally authentic and every one can drift on its own.

2. What point (g) says

Article 19(1) lists what must appear on the container and the packaging, from point (a) to point (g). Point (g) is the ingredient list:

a list of ingredients. This information may be indicated on the packaging alone. The list shall be preceded by the term 'ingredients'.

In English, in every version. This is not a translator's omission: it is the rule. The term works as a technical label common to the whole internal market, exactly like the ingredient names it heads.

3. Four deviations, one at a time

What makes this corrigendum interesting is that the four versions went wrong in different ways. This is not one error copied around: they are four independent translation decisions that arrived at the same wrong place.

Each block reproduces the text as it appears in its own language version, with that language's own quotation marks. The quoted fragments are the final sentence of point (g); the rest of the point is omitted and marked with […].

3.1. Bulgarian and Maltese: replacing the term

Both versions swapped the English word for its national equivalent.

Bulgarian — Article 19(1), point ж):

instead of: […] Този списък се предшества от термина „съставки“. read: […] Този списък се предшества от термина „ingredients“.

Maltese — Article 19(1), point (g):

minflok: […] Il-lista għandu jkollha qabilha t-terminu ‘ingredjenti’. aqra: […] Il-lista għandu jkollha qabilha t-terminu ‘ingredients’.

3.2. Latvian: keeping the term and adding a gloss

The Latvian version did say ingredients, but with the translation appended in brackets:

instead of: […] Šā saraksta priekšā ir uzraksts “ingredients” (sastāvdaļas). read: […] Šā saraksta priekšā ir uzraksts “ingredients”.

The corrigendum removes the gloss. An explanatory bracket looks harmless, but it turns a standardised label into two things at once, and point (g) admits only one.

3.3. Slovenian: offering both as alternatives

The Slovenian version let you choose:

besedilo: […] Pred seznamom je naveden izraz ‚sestavine‘ ali ‚ingredients‘. se glasi: […] Pred seznamom je naveden izraz ‚ingredients‘.

Where the text read "the term sestavine or ingredients", it now reads only "ingredients".

4. What changes for a label already printed

This deserves precision, because it is easy to overclaim.

In all four versions, a brand that printed its label following the text published in its own language headed the list with a word the corrected text no longer carries. Bulgarian required съставки, Maltese ingredjenti, and Latvian the term followed by (sastāvdaļas). None of the three offered an alternative: that was the wording of their language version.

What is specific to Slovenia is different, and subtler: its text did offer a choice between two forms, and the corrigendum withdraws one of them. A Slovenian company could always have printed ingredients and been in order; a Latvian one following its own version to the letter could not.

It is a small change on the surface and an expensive one in practice, because the word is printed on the pack rather than in a document you correct and resend. If you sell into any of those four markets, this is the concrete check that comes out of this article.

5. The previous corrigendum is eight months old

Corrigendum 15 (32009R1223R(15), OJ L 2025/90805, 9 October 2025) did exactly the same thing to the same point (g), across five language versions:

One corrigendum citing different pages per language is normal, and here it has a concrete cause: Croatian was not published in the 2009 Official Journal.

All five are verified against the text of the act and against the corrigenda table of each language consolidated version.

Between the two corrigenda that is nine language versions in under nine months. And there is nothing before them: none of the fourteen earlier corrigenda touched point (g).

Czech, Spanish and English, by contrast, read ingredients from the start and never needed a corrigendum.

6. Why that word is not translated

The answer sits one paragraph below, in Article 19(6):

The information mentioned in point (g) of paragraph 1 shall be expressed by using the common ingredient name set out in the glossary provided for in Article 33. In the absence of a common ingredient name, a term as contained in a generally accepted nomenclature shall be used.

That glossary is compiled and updated by the Commission, which "shall take account of internationally recognised nomenclatures including the International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients (INCI)" — and Article 33 adds that the glossary "shall not constitute a list of the substances authorised for use in cosmetic products". In practice the common names are the INCI ones, but the regulation does not say INCI: it says glossary, and it provides a fallback to any generally accepted nomenclature where no common name exists.

The ingredient list is the only part of the labelling for which the Union fixed a specific term and a specific nomenclature instead of devolving the language to national law. It is written the same way in Sofia, Riga, Valletta and Ljubljana, precisely so that a consumer with an allergy can recognise a substance on any European pack without knowing the language. And that is why the heading is not translated either: translating it breaks the coherence of the only part of the pack's text the Union standardised instead of leaving it to the national language. Other label elements are also read without a language — the Annex VII pictograms, such as the open jar for the period after opening — but those are symbols, not text.

7. What this corrigendum does not touch

• The rest of the labelling stays in the national language. Article 19(5) devolves to Member State law the language of points (b), (c), (d) and (f) of paragraph 1 — nominal content, minimum durability date, precautions in use and product function — and of paragraphs 2, 3 and 4. That does not change.
• The ingredient list itself does not change. It still uses the glossary names, in descending order of weight — ingredients below 1 % may appear in any order, but after those above 1 % — with nanomaterials followed by the word 'nano' in brackets.
• No substance is added, banned or restricted. A corrigendum cannot do that.
• The English and Spanish versions are unaffected. Both already read 'ingredients'.

8. What the document says, and what it does not

The published act is two blocks — "instead of" and "read" — plus a page reference. Nothing else. It carries no entry-into-force article, no date of application, no transitional period, and not one line about its effects.

A corrigendum is usually read as declaratory: it states what the correct text was, rather than changing it. That reading is worth not pushing further than the document supports, particularly where what is withdrawn is an option the published text offered, as in the Slovenian case.

What this article does not claim is how national authorities will treat stock already printed with the previous word. That depends on each Member State's inspection practice, and the published document says nothing about it. If you have affected product, the question is for the competent authority, not for the text.

9. Three traps if you go and verify this

The consolidated text lags behind. The available consolidation is dated 18 May 2026 and the corrigendum was published on 26 June 2026. Open the consolidated text and all four corrected versions — Bulgarian, Latvian, Maltese and Slovenian — still show the earlier wording, making this article look wrong. The corrigendum is the authority over them until a later consolidation is published.

The document does not exist in English or Spanish — but EUR-Lex does not say so the same way at every address. The document view (/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=…) returns the record with the notice "The document is unavailable in your User interface language" and shows you the text in one of the languages it does exist in. The direct HTML view (/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=…) answers "The requested document does not exist". Neither is a broken link: a corrigendum is published only in the language versions it corrects, so this document exists in Bulgarian, Latvian, Maltese and Slovenian alone.

The consolidated text's ▼Cn marker is not the corrigendum number. It is the row index of that language version's table, and the best proof is corrigendum 15 itself: it appears as ▼C12 in the Croatian consolidated text, ▼C13 in the Portuguese and Romanian, ▼C14 in the Greek and ▼C15 in the French. One act, five different numbers. The table also mixes corrigenda to the base act with corrigenda to its amending acts. The real number lives in the CELEX R(nn) suffix.

10. How this shows up in BD-API

EUR-Lex acts that amend or correct Regulation 1223/2009 are one of the sources of our regulatory watch, alongside CosIng, the SCCS, WTO TBT notifications and Safety Gate.

A corrigendum enters with its own relation type — corrects, not amends — because the two read differently: an amendment changes the rule from a date onward, a corrigendum states what it said. Telling them apart is the difference between flagging a change and flagging a misreading.

11. Frequently asked questions

Do I have to reprint my labels? Only if you headed the list with the national term in one of the four markets: съставки in Bulgaria, ingredjenti in Malta, ingredients (sastāvdaļas) in Latvia, or sestavine in Slovenia. If you already used plain 'ingredients', which is standard on multi-country labels, nothing changes for you.

Does it only affect Slovenia? No. It affects all four versions. Slovenia is the only case where what disappears is an option the text offered; in the other three, the national term was the only published wording.

Does it affect the UK? No. This corrects EU language versions of Regulation 1223/2009. For Great Britain the applicable regime is the retained UK Cosmetics Regulation — see our guide to selling cosmetics in the United Kingdom.

From when does it apply? The document sets no date of application and no transitional period: it is two blocks of text and a page reference. It was published on 26 June 2026.

Can I put the translation next to it in small print? The corrected text names a single term. The Latvian case is precisely one of a bracketed gloss, and it is the one that was removed.

Does this change the ingredient list? No. It changes only the word preceding it. The list is still governed by Article 19(6).

12. In short

Sixteen corrigenda to a 2009 regulation, and this one is about a single word. But it is the word heading the only part of the pack for which the Union fixed a specific term, and four language versions had changed it anyway, each in its own way: two replaced it, one appended a gloss, one offered both forms.

Of the four, only the Slovenian withdraws an alternative the text had given. The other three correct the only wording there was. In all of them, a label printed according to its own language version no longer matches the corrected text.

And it is not an isolated episode: five other versions went through the same thing in October 2025. If you look for the change in the consolidated text you will not find it yet, because the available consolidation is from May and the corrigendum is from June. It is in Official Journal L 2026/90520, of 26 June 2026, against page 73 of a regulation published in 2009.

Disclaimer. This article is informational and does not constitute regulatory or legal advice. It describes the content of a corrigendum published in the Official Journal of the European Union; only the text published there has legal force. The consequences for product already on the market depend on each Member State's inspection practice, on which the document is silent.