Language of document :

Action brought on 11 February 2019 — Italian Republic v Council of the European Union, European Parliament

(Case C-106/19)

Language of the case: Italian

Parties

Applicant: Italian Republic (represented by: G. Palmieri, S. Fiorentino, C. Colelli, acting as Agents)

Defendants: Council of the European Union, European Parliament

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

Annul Regulation (EU) 2018/1718 amending Regulation (EC) No 726/2004 in so far as regards the location of the seat of the European Medicines Agency, published in Official Journal L 291 of 16 November 2018; 1

order the Council and the Parliament to pay the costs of the present proceedings.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The application is supported by two pleas in law, which allege:

infringement of Articles 10, 13 and 14 of the Treaty on European Union. Infringement of Articles 114, 168(4)(c), 289 and 294 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union: by naming Amsterdam as the seat of the EMA, the contested regulation merely reflects the choice made at the Council meeting of 20 November 2017 without any involvement on the part of the European Parliament. It follows, with regard to the adoption of the regulation, that, by not having been able to influence in any way the content of the decision, the Parliament was essentially divested of its prerogatives, which ought rather to have been fully respected, in accordance with the provisions of the Treaties governing the legislative procedure chosen;

that the contested regulation is unlawful as a result of the unlawfulness of the decision of 20 November 2017 — 14559/17. Misuse of powers, through failure to investigate adequately and distortion of facts: if it were to be established that the Regulation may in fact only reflect the decision taken on 20 November 2017, and that the Parliament’s prerogatives had therefore not been infringed, then the regulation itself must be considered to be vitiated, indirectly, by the same defects which vitiate that decision and were previously criticised by the Italian Republic in the application that gave rise to Case C-59/18.

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1     Regulation (EU) 2018/1718 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 November 2018 amending Regulation (EC) No 726/2004 as regards the location of the seat of the European Medicines Agency (OJ 2018 L 291, p. 3).