Keywords
Summary

Keywords

++++

1. Acts of the Community institutions ° Drafting procedure ° Due consultation of the Parliament ° Essential procedural requirement ° Reconsultation where substantial amendments are made to the original proposal ° Opinion of the Parliament a matter of common knowledge ° Irrelevant

2. Transport ° Road transport ° Tax provisions ° Harmonization of laws ° Taxes on certain vehicles used for the carriage of goods by road and charges for the use of certain infrastructures ° Directive 93/89 ° Substantially different from the Commission' s initial proposal ° Failure to reconsult the Parliament ° Infringement of essential procedural requirements ° Unlawful

(EC Treaty, Arts 75 and 99; Council Directive 93/89)

3. Actions for annulment of measures ° Judgment annulling a measure ° Effects ° Limited by the Court ° Case of a directive ° Council under a duty to put an end within a reasonable period to the substantial irregularity giving rise to the annulment

(EC Treaty, Arts 173 and 174, para. 2)

Summary

1. Due consultation of the Parliament in the cases provided for by the Treaty constitutes an essential formal requirement breach of which renders the measure concerned void. The effective participation of the Parliament in the legislative process of the Community, in accordance with the procedures laid down by the Treaty, represents an essential factor in the institutional balance intended by the Treaty. Such power reflects the fundamental democratic principle that the people should take part in the exercise of power through the intermediary of a representative assembly.

The duty to consult the European Parliament in the course of the legislative procedure, in the cases provided for by the Treaty, implies the requirement that the Parliament should be reconsulted whenever the text finally adopted, viewed as a whole, departs substantially from the text on which the Parliament has already been consulted, except where the amendments essentially correspond to the wish of the Parliament itself.

It is not possible for the institution adopting the final text to evade that duty on the ground that it was sufficiently well informed as to the opinion of the Parliament on the essential points at issue, since that would result in seriously undermining the effective participation of the Parliament in the legislative processes of the Community which is essential to the maintenance of the institutional balance intended by the Treaty, and would amount to disregarding the influence that due consultation of the Parliament can have on adoption of the measure in question.

2. It is apparent from a comparison between the Commission' s initial proposal for a directive and the content of Directive 93/89, as adopted by the Council, that as regards the objective of introducing a harmonized system of road charging to include vehicle taxes, excise duty on fuel and charges for the use of certain types of road infrastructure, taking infrastructure and external costs into account, a text requiring the Commission to submit a report and proposals for achieving that objective in order that the Council should adopt a harmonized system by 31 December 1998 at the latest has been replaced by another text under which not only is the Council no longer obliged to adopt a harmonized system within the prescribed period, but also the Commission is no longer required to submit in its report proposals for establishing cost-charging arrangements based on the principle of territoriality.

Those are substantial amendments. Since they do not correspond to any wish expressed by Parliament and do affect the scheme of the proposal as a whole, since the legislative procedure is governed by Articles 75 and 99 of the Treaty, the Parliament must be reconsulted. The fact that it was not reconsulted constitutes an infringement of essential procedural requirements as a result of which Directive 93/89 must be annulled.

3. The need to ensure that annulment, for infringement of the obligation properly to consult Parliament, of Directive 93/89 concerning taxes on certain vehicles used for the carriage of goods by road and road charges for the use of certian infrastructures does not lead to discontinuity in the programme for the harmonization of transport taxation and also important considerations of legal certainty, comparable with those arising where certain regulations are annulled, justify the Court in exercising the power expressly conferred on it by the second paragraph of Article 174 of the EC Treaty when it annuls a regulation and in ruling that all the effects of the annulled directive should be preserved provisionally until the Council has adopted a new directive.

Although the Court does not have jurisdiction, in the context of its review of the legality of an act under Article 173 of the Treaty, to issue an order to the Council imposing a time-limit within which the latter must adopt new rules on the matter, the Council is none the less under a duty to put an end within a reasonable period to the infringement it has committed.