Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1 . Action for annulment - Right of action granted to natural or legal persons by the second paragraph of Article 173 of the EEC Treaty - Exercise by the Parliament - Excluded

( EEC Treaty, Art . 4 and Art . 173, second paragraph )

2 . Action for failure to act - Right of action of institutions - Parliament - Link with the right to bring an action for annulment - None

( EEC Treaty, Art . 173, first paragraph and Art . 175, first paragraph )

3 . Action for failure to act - Institution called upon to act - Express refusal to act which does not put an end to the failure to act - Admissibility of the action

( EEC Treaty, Art . 175 )

4 . Procedure - Intervention - Right available to the Parliament - Link with the right to bring an action for annulment - None

( EEC Treaty, Art . 173, first paragraph; Statute of the Court of Justice of the EEC, Art . 37 )

5 . Action for annulment - Measures against which an action may be brought - Measures adopted by the Parliament intended to have legal effects vis-à-vis third parties - Effects as regards the Parliament' s right to bring an action for the annulment of measures adopted by other institutions - None

( ECSC Treaty, Arts 33 and 38; EEC Treaty, Art . 173, first paragraph )

6 . Action for annulment - Measures against which an action may be brought - Measures adopted by the Parliament intended to have legal effects vis-à-vis third parties - Declaration that the budget has been finally adopted - Effects as regards the Parliament' s right to bring an action for the annulment of measures adopted by other institutions - None

( EEC Treaty, Art . 173, first paragraph, and Art . 203 )

7 . Action for annulment - Parliament' s right of action - None

( EEC Treaty, Art . 173, first paragraph )

Summary

1 . The Parliament cannot be recognized as having capacity to bring an action for annulment under the second paragraph of Article 173 of the Treaty .

Article 173 contrasts the right of action of the institutions to which it refers in its first paragraph with the right of action of individuals, be they natural or legal persons, for which the conditions are laid down in its second paragraph . The Parliament, which is one of the institutions of the Community listed in Article 4 of the Treaty, is not a legal person .

Moreover, the scheme of the second paragraph of Article 173 would in any event be inappropriate to an action by the Parliament for annulment . The applicants referred to in the second paragraph of Article 173 must be directly and individually concerned by the actual content of the act which they challenge . However, it is not the content of the act which could adversely affect the European Parliament but a failure to comply with the procedural rules requiring its involvement . Moreover, the second paragraph of Article 173 refers only to a limited class of acts, namely those which are individual in their application, whereas the Parliament seeks recognition of the right to bring actions against acts which have general application .

2 . As is apparent from the first paragraph of Article 175 of the Treaty, the Parliament was vested with the power to obtain a declaration by the Court establishing a failure to act on the part of the Commission or the Council and thus to bring to an end any immobilization of the decision-making machinery which might prevent it from exercising its powers . It does not follow that, because it is entitled to have a failure to act established, the Parliament must be recognized as having the possibility of bringing actions for annulment .

There is no necessary link between the action for annulment and the action for failure to act . This follows from the fact that the action for failure to act enables the European Parliament to induce the adoption of measures which cannot in all cases be the subject of an action for annulment . Thus, as long as a draft budget has not been presented by the Council, the Parliament can obtain a judgment establishing the Council' s failure to act, whereas the draft budget, which is a preparatory measure, could not be challenged under Article 173 .

3 . A refusal to act, however explicit, on the part of the Council or the Commission, after the institution in question has been called upon to act pursuant to Article 175 of the Treaty, can be brought before the Court on the basis of that article since it does not put an end to the failure to act .

4 . The right conferred on the Parliament by Article 37 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the EEC to intervene in proceedings before the Court does not mean that it must be recognized as having the possibility of bringing actions for annulment .

There is no necessary link between the right to intervene and the possibility of bringing an action . On the one hand, according to the second paragraph of the abovementioned article, the right of individuals to intervene is conditional upon "an interest in the result of any case" before the Court, whereas the admissibility of an action for annulment brought by individuals is subject to the condition that they must be the addressees of the measure which they seek to have annulled or at least that the measure should be of direct and individual concern to them . On the other hand, under the first paragraph of that article, the Parliament is entitled to intervene in cases such as those concerning the failure by States to fulfil their obligations, whereas the right to bring such cases before the Court is reserved to the Commission and the Member States .

5 . Although, in order to conform to the system of the Treaty, which was intended to establish a complete system of judicial protection against acts of Community institutions which are capable of having legal effects, an action for annulment must be available against measures adopted by the Parliament having such effects on third parties, that in no way implies that the Parliament itself must be recognized as having the right to bring such actions against measures adopted by the Council or the Commission .

Within the system of the Treaties, as is apparent from a comparison between Articles 33 and 38 of the ECSC Treaty, in those cases where provision was made for acts of the European Parliament to be subject to review of their legality, the Parliament was not thereby empowered to bring a direct action on its own initiative against acts of other institutions .

6 . The budgetary procedure, as laid down in Article 203 of the EEC Treaty, involves a series of preparatory measures taken by the two arms of the budgetary authority which form part of the process of drawing up the budget and the latter does not become legally binding until completion of the procedure, that is to say when the President of the Parliament, in his capacity as an organ of that institution, declares that the budget has been finally adopted .

It follows that, as far as the approval of the budget is concerned, the only measure which can be declared void emanates from an organ of the European Parliament and must therefore be attributed to that institution itself . Consequently, the Parliament cannot rely upon its budgetary powers in order to obtain recognition of its right to bring actions for the annulment of measures emanating from the Commission and the Council .

7 . The applicable provisions, as they stand at present, do not enable the Court to recognize the capacity of the European Parliament to bring an action for annulment .