Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1. Actions for annulment of measures - Measures against which actions may be brought - Definition - Acts with mandatory legal effects - Act adopted by an institution on a basis other than the Treaty - Lack of relevance

(EEC Treaty, Art. 173)

2. Actions for annulment of measures - Parliament' s right to bring an action - Conditions of admissibility - Defence of its prerogatives - Participation in the legislative process - Affected by the Council' s choice of the legal basis of an act of secondary legislation - Admissibility

(EEC Treaty, Art. 173)

3. International agreements - Conclusion - Development aid - Competence of the Member States and of the Community - Fourth ACP-EEC Lomé Convention - Performance - Financial assistance

(Fourth ACP-EEC Lomé Convention of 15 December 1989)

4. International agreements - Fourth ACP-EEC Lomé Convention - Financial assistance - Sources and methods - Ad hoc financial regulation - Adoption - Legal basis - Infringement of the Parliament' s prerogatives - Absence

(EEC Treaty, Art. 209; Fourth ACP-EEC Convention of 15 December 1989, Art. 231; Financial Protocol to the Convention, Art. 1; Internal Agreement 91/401/EEC on the financing and administration of Community aid under the Fourth ACP-EEC Convention, Art. 32; Financial Regulation 91/491)

Summary

1. An action for annulment must be available in the case of all measures adopted by the institutions, whatever their nature or form, which are intended to have legal effects, irrespective of whether or not the act was adopted by the institution pursuant to Treaty provisions.

2. The Parliament may bring an action for annulment against an act of the Council or the Commission provided that the action seeks only to safeguard its prerogatives and that it is founded only on submissions alleging their infringement. That condition is satisfied where the Parliament indicates in an appropriate manner the substance of the prerogative to be safeguarded and how that prerogative is allegedly infringed.

The right to be consulted in accordance with a provision of the Treaty is such a prerogative. The adoption of an act on a legal basis which does not provide for mandatory consultation is liable to infringe that prerogative, even if there has been optional consultation. Proper consultation of the European Parliament where required by the Treaty is one of the means allowing it to play an actual part in the legislative process of the Community.

3. Since the Community' s competence in the field of development aid is not exclusive, the Member States are entitled to enter into commitments themselves vis-à-vis non-member States, either collectively or individually, or even jointly with the Community.

Concluded by the Community and its Member States of the one part and the ACP States of the other part, the Fourth ACP-EEC Lomé Convention established an essentially bilateral ACP-EEC cooperation. In the absence of derogations expressly laid down in the Convention, the Community and its Member States as partners of the ACP States are jointly liable to the latter for the fulfilment of every obligation arising from the commitments undertaken, including those relating to financial assistance.

4. Competence to implement the Community' s financial assistance provided for by Article 231 of the Fourth ACP-EEC Lomé Convention and Article 1 of the Financial Protocol to the Convention is shared by the Community and its Member States; it is for them to choose the source and methods of financing. That choice was made by Internal Agreement 91/401 on the financing and administration of Community aid under the Fourth ACP-EEC Convention, the provisions for implementing which are the subject of a financial regulation to be adopted by the Council pursuant to Article 32 thereof.

Article 1 of the Internal Agreement provides that the Member States are to set up a seventh European Development Fund and specifies the contribution of each Member State to that Fund. It follows that the expenditure necessary for the Community' s financial assistance is assumed directly by the Member States. Consequently, that expenditure is not Community expenditure which must be entered in the Community budget and to which Article 209 of the Treaty must apply.

It follows that the abovementioned financial regulation did not have to be adopted on the basis of Article 209 and that its adoption accordingly did not require mandatory consultation of the Parliament.

No complaint can therefore be made that the Council infringed the latter' s prerogatives in undertaking only an optional consultation.