Judgment of the General Court of 21 April 2021 — Pech v Council

(Case T-252/19) (1)

(Access to documents - Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 - Second indent of Article 4(2) of Regulation No 1049/2001 - Protection of legal advice - First subparagraph of Article 4(3) of Regulation No 1049/2001 - Protection of the decision-making process - Refusal to grant full access to a legal opinion of the Council’s Legal Service)

(2021/C 242/28)

Language of the case: English

Parties

Applicant: Laurent Pech (London, United Kingdom) (represented by: O. Brouwer and T. McGrath, lawyers)

Defendant: Council of the European Union (represented by: K. Pavlaki and E. Rebasti, acting as Agents)

Intervener in support of the applicant: Kingdom of Sweden (represented by: O. Simonsson, C. Meyer-Seitz, A. Runeskjöld, J. Lundberg, M. Salborn Hodgson, H. Shev, H. Eklinder and R. Shahsavan Eriksson, acting as Agents)

Re:

Application under Article 263 TFEU seeking annulment of the decision of the Council of 12 February 2019 refusing to grant full access to the opinion of its Legal Service contained in document ST 13593 2018 INIT concerning the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 2 May 2018 on the protection of the European Union’s budget in case of generalised deficiencies as regards the rule of law in the Member States (COM(2018) 324 final).

Operative part of the judgment

The Court:

Annuls the decision of the Council of the European Union of 12 February 2019 refusing full access to document ST 13593 2018 INIT, containing the opinion of the Legal Service of the Council concerning the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of the Union’s budget in case of generalised deficiencies as regards the rule of law in the Member States (COM(2018) 324 final);

2.	Orders the Council to bear its own costs and to pay those incurred by Mr Laurent Pech;

3.	Orders the Kingdom of Sweden to bear its own costs.

(1) OJ C 213, 24.6.2019.