This paper explores aspects of EU institutional and legal language. Special attention is given to the linguistic features and lexical productivity resulting from the intercultural dialogue between EU Member States, with the aim of investigating the cultural messages conveyed by a specialized use of the language. In particular, the study focuses on the analysis of neologisms derived from Community debates, policy and legislation, with specific reference to those new terms that have permeated the Italian language through the direct influence of domestic politics and the media. The source corpus covers a time-span of twelve years, and consists of data drawn from the legislation of the European Union published in the Official Journal from 1990 to 2002, available in all the language versions on Eur-Lex, the electronic archive of the EU.