Case T-526/10

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Others

v

European Commission

‛Trade in seal products — Regulation (EC) No 1007/2009 — Detailed rules for implementation — Regulation (EU) No 737/2010 — Prohibition on placing such products on the market — Exception in favour of Inuit communities — Plea of illegality — Legal basis — Subsidiarity — Proportionality — Misuse of powers’

Summary — Judgment of the General Court (Seventh Chamber), 25 April 2013

1. Proceedings — Examination of the substance before examination of admissibility — Whether permissible

2. Plea of illegality — Scope — Measures the illegality of which may be pleaded — Measure of a general character as the basis for the contested measure

   (Arts 263 TFEU and 277 TFEU)

3. Acts of the institutions — Choice of legal basis — Criteria — EU measure pursuing a twofold aim or having a twofold component — Reference to the principal or preponderant aim or component — Regulation on trade in seal-derived products — Sole aim of improving the functioning of the internal market — No twofold aim or component

   (Arts 95 EC and 133 EC; European Parliament and Council Regulation No 1007/2009, Art. 3(1))

4. Approximation of laws — Measures to improve the functioning of the internal market — Legal basis — Article 95 EC — Scope

   (Art. 95 EC)

5. Approximation of laws — Trade in seal products — Regulation No 1007/2009 — Legal basis — Article 95 EC — Improvement of conditions for the functioning of the internal market — Prohibition on marketing those products — Determinant character of the protection of animal welfare in the choice of harmonisation measures — Not relevant

   (Art. 95 EC; European Parliament and Council Regulation No 1007/2009)

6. EU law — Principles — Principles of subsidiarity and proportionality — Application to measures adopted with a view to realising the internal market — Review of compliance with those principles — Criteria

   (Art. 95 EC)

7. Approximation of laws — Trade in seal products — Regulation No 1007/2009 — Detailed rules for implementation — Establishment of detailed conditions for the importation and marketing on the EU market of those products — Misuse of powers — None

   (European Parliament and Council Regulation No 1007/2009; Commission Regulation No 737/2010)

1.  See the text of the decision.

   (see para. 20)

2.  See the text of the decision.

   (see para. 24)

3.  In the context of the organisation of the powers of the Union, the choice of the legal basis for a measure must rest on objective factors amenable to judicial review. Such factors include, in particular, the aim and the content of the measure. If an examination of an act of the Union reveals that it pursues a twofold aim, or that it has a twofold component, and if one of those is identifiable as the main one, and the other is merely incidental, the measure must be based on a single legal basis, namely that required by the main aim or component. Exceptionally, if on the other hand it is established that the act simultaneously pursues a number of objectives or has several components that are indissociably linked, without one being secondary and indirect in relation to the other, such an act will have to be founded on the various corresponding legal bases.

   That is not the case with Regulation No 1007/2009 on trade in seal products, the sole objective of which, as stated in particular in the last sentence of Article 3(1) thereof, is to ensure the effectiveness of measures intended to improve the functioning of the internal market, without there being any additional objective concerning the implementation of the common trade policy. Regulation No 1007/2009 cannot therefore have both Article 95 EC and Article 133 EC as its legal basis at one and the same time.

   (see paras 27, 66, 67, 72)

4.  See the text of the decision.

   (see paras 28-30, 32, 54)

5.  Regulation No 1007/2009 on trade in seal products has as its object the improvement of the conditions for the functioning of the internal market and, therefore, was adopted on the basis of Article 95 EC.

   When there are obstacles to trade, or it is likely that such obstacles will emerge in the future, because the Member States have taken, or are about to take, divergent measures with respect to a product or a class of products, which bring about different levels of protection and thereby prevent the product or products concerned from moving freely within the Union, Article 95 EC authorises the Union legislature to intervene by adopting appropriate measures, in compliance with Article 95(3) EC and with the legal principles mentioned in the Treaty or identified in the case-law, in particular the principle of proportionality. Depending on the circumstances, those appropriate measures may consist in requiring all the Member States to authorise the marketing of the product or products concerned, subjecting such an obligation of authorisation to certain conditions, or even provisionally or definitively prohibiting the marketing of certain products.

   In that regard, given the adoption by Member States of new rules reflecting the growing concern of citizens and consumers over the welfare of seals, the EU legislature correctly concluded that, in the absence of action at EU level, it was likely that obstacles to trade in products containing or likely to contain seal-derived products would arise or already existed. The EU legislature therefore took action in order to harmonise the rules in question and thus prevent the disturbance of the internal market in the products concerned.

   Moreover, where the conditions for recourse to Article 95 EC as a legal basis are fulfilled, the EU legislature cannot be prevented from relying on that legal basis on the ground that the protection of animal welfare is a decisive factor in the choices to be made.

   (see paras 31, 33, 40, 41, 52, 64)

6.  See the text of the decision.

   (see paras 84, 87-89)

7.  See the text of the decision.

   (see paras 121-129)