State Agency Official State Gazette

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• Contents and sections of the BOE

  In accordance with Royal Decree 181/2008, of 8 February the Boletín Oficial del Estado (Official State Gazette) is the official gazette of the Spanish State and publishes laws, provisions and acts of compulsory publication.

  The Official State Gazette publishes:

  1. The general provisions issued by the bodies of the State and international treaties and conventions.
  2. The general provisions issued by the Autonomous Communities, in accordance with the with the Statutes of Autonomy and those law rank regulations issued for their development.
  3. The resolutions and acts isssued by the constitutional bodies of the State, in accordance with the provisions of the corresponding organic laws.
  4. The provisions with no legal character, the resolutions and acts issued by ministerial departments and other bodies of the State and Public Administrations, when so established by law or royal decree.
  5. The calls, citations, warrants and announcements, when so established by a law or royal decree.

  The Council of Ministers may, as an exception, resolve the publications of reports, documents or official communications whose dissemination is considered to be of public interest.

  Structure and content of the BOE

  Content

  SectionI. General provisions

  • Organic laws, laws, royal legislative decrees and royal decree-laws.
  • International treaties and conventions.
  • Laws passed by the legislative assemblies of the Autonomous Communities.
  • The regulations and other provisions with general character.
  • The regulations issued by the government councils of the Autonomous Communities.

  SectionII. Authorities and personnel

  Made up of two subsections:

  • II.A. Appointments, situations and events.
  • II.B. Public competitive examinations and selection processes.

  SectionIII. Other provisions

  Comprised of the provisions of compulsory publication with no legal character or apply to other sections: regulatory basis of concession of grants; prizes and other awards and subventions; service charters; collective agreements with general character; university curricula; etc.

  SectionIV. Administration of Justice

  Comprised judicial auctions and procedural acts that do not come under the Supplement of the Judicial Public Notice Board.

  SectionV. Announcements

  Grouped as follows:

  • V.A. Public Sector Procurement (calls for tender).
  • V.B. Other official announcements: includes extracts from grant calls, awards and other assistance and subventions, public information processes, administrative concessions, etc.
  • V.C. Private announcements.

  Constitutional Court Section: Sentences, declarations and decrees of the Constitutional Court.

  There also two independent Supplements: the Notifications Supplement and the Supplement of the Single Judicial Notice Board.

  Within each section, the insertion of texts is made by grouping them under the body they are issued by, according to the general order of precedence of the State. The provisions issued by the Autonomous Communities are published in accordance with the order of official publication of the Statutes of Autonomy.

  Within each section, the texts are organized by hierarchical rank.

  Each number of the gazette includes a summary of the content, according to the structure indicated above.

  The text of laws, provisions and acts published in the BOE has official and authentic status; for their part, the texts of the rules issued by the Autonomous Communities and published in the BOE have the status given to them by the respective Statutes of Autonomy.

  The laws, royal decree-laws and royal legislative decrees, once signed by the King and published in Spanish in the Official State Gazette, may also be published in the other co-official languages of the different Autonomous Communities. These publications in co-official languages are available in the form of specific supplements of the BOE, according to the respective collaboration agreements subscribed between the Central Government and the Autonomous Communities of Catalonia, Galicia, the Basque Country and Valencia.

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• How can I consult the BOE?

  You can access the latest published issue of the BOE from the homepage of the website www.boe.es.

  The website of the day's BOE offers the summary and index of all published on that day.

  The information is structured into three sections:

  
  1. From the tab “Disposiciones y Anuncios” you can access everything published in all the sections of the gazette.
  2. From the tab “Notificaciones” you can consult the notification announcements of the “Notifications Supplement”.
  3. From the tab “Edictos Judiciales” you can access the “Suplement of the Single Judicial Notice Board”.

  Under “Disposiciones y anuncios” you can select the Section or Sub-section of interest. This option is also available in the case of the Supplement of the Single Judicial Notice Board.

  

  You can also choose to view only the provisions and announcements published by a specific Department. This option is also available for both Supplements.

  

  Under the header of any provision, the links offered provide direct access to the pdf format and to the other formats available where applicable:

  

  If you need to consult a recent issue of the gazette, click on the icon located on the upper right corner of scree;

  

  To access the gazettes published on other dates, on the homepage of the website you will find access to the “Calendar” where you can browse the gazettes published from 1 September 1960 to date.

  

  You can also click directly on the date you are looking for in the window:

  

  At the bottom of the page, using the calendar, you can also access the supplements in co-official languages (Català, Galego, Valencià and Euskera) and the Constitutional Court Section.

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• Is the online BOE official and authentic?

  Yes, the electronic edition of the Official State Gazette published on the Agency's official website, since 1 January 2009, has official and authentic status, arising from the effects provided for in the Preliminary Title of the Civil Code and the remaining applicable provisions.

  Prior to this date, only the printed edition of the Official State Gazette was considered official and authentic.

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• How and when can the authenticity of the electronic BOE be guaranteed?

  To guarantee the authenticity, integrity and inalterability of the contents of the BOE the electronic edition published on the Agency's website has, since 1 January 2009 included an advanced digital signature.

  Said signature is included separately in each of the provisions published. This ensures the authenticity of a specific provision without having to download the full gazette.

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• ¿Why is a signed electronic document unalterable?

  The process of an electronic signature blocks and "freezes" the content of the document in such a manner that the alteration of same invalidates the electronic signature.

  The electronic signature process is comprised of two operations:

  1. Calculating a summary (or digital hash) of fixed length based on the full content of the document
  2. Encrypting this summary with the private key corresponding to the issuer certificate. The encryption summary is packaged with the document even though the visible content of the document is not encrypted, so it is legible.

  To validated a document signed electronically, that is to confirm that no cause is altered from the signing of the document, three operations must be executed:

  1. Recalculate the (hash) based on the content of the document.
  2. Decipher the hash included in the document using the public key contained in the issuer certificate and
  3. comparing both summaries. If they coincide, document has not been altered since it was signed and, therefore, remains valid. If they do not coincide, there has been an alteration and the signature is declared invalid.

  The method of calculating the summaries of the three properties: (a) the length is always fixed, regardless of the length of the summarised document, (b) a minimum alteration of the content of the document results in a very different summary and (c) calculating a summary is not a systematic operation: one can easily calculate the summary of a text but it is not possible to reconstruct the text based on the summary.

  To validate the pdf documents of the electronic BOE, follow the instructions of the Configuration manual for the validation of the signature (PDF) and install the certificates of the Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre:

  • Root certificate FNMT (.cer)
  • Intermediate certificate FNMT (.cer)

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• What is the CVE?

  [D]

  TheCVE, or electronic Verification code consists of a set of characters that uniquely identify the unique the provisions, acts and announcements published in the Official State Gazette.

  This code is printed on each of the pages of each provision, act or announcement published and facilitates access to the original electronic document on the website of the Official State Gazette Agency.

  ¿Why is the CVE important?

  Because any paper copy of the electronic originals of the Official State Gazette, since 1 January 2009, is considered official and authentic if it includes the CVE.

  The CVE allows for the authenticity of any page of the Official State Gazette to be verified in printed form by matching it to the original electronic document. To do so, on the access page to the official gazette you can enter the CVE and obtain the original document, signed electronically, directly from the Agency website.

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• What formats is the BOE available in?

  The official and authentic edition of the BOE is that offered signed in pdf format.

  Nevertheless, the content of the different Sections of the gazette are also available in other formats to facilitate citizens’ access and promote the reuse of published legal information. It is possible to access these formats through the summaries of the day by clicking on “Other formats”.

  Thus, the provisions and announcements published in the gazette are also offered in html. Each html document contains a header with the identification and publication data of the provision or announcement, and the link to other formats:

  • To the signed official pdf format
  • To the xml file.

  For general provisions published in section I, the link is offered in e-PUB format (available since 2010), especially geared towards viewing e-book type devices.

  For the conversion of ePUB documents in any format, and how they are managed and sent to any electronic reader device, we recommend the use of the fee tool Calibre(Windows, OS X, Linux): http://calibre-ebook.com/. It is also possible to view these document simply in Windows or OS X, using the free viewer Adobe, Digital Editions: http://www.adobe.com/es/products/digitaleditions/

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