52
Christian Tomuschat
Deuxième séance de travail — Les retombées
an entitlement must at least be plausibly alleged (
8
). Where the requirements
are thus placed at too high a level, Union policies may become frustrated in-
asmuch as, apart from the Commission, no other actor is capable of assum-
ing the defence of common interests (
9
). In principle, an assessment made in
this regard at domestic level should not be different from the assessment of
the Court as to whether a private citizen may invoke a provision of Union
law. Yet inconsistencies may easily occur, in particular in respect of situations
where the Court has not yet made a definitive pronouncement on the legal
position concerned. On the other hand, where the domestic system is par-
ticularly generous in granting
jus standi
, the Court may be faced with issues
of a highly political nature not ideally appropriate for private litigation. The
Irish case of
Pringle
(
10
)
provides a borderline ‘problematique’
in that regard.
Normally, as is well known, the Court does not enquire into the relevance of
the questions referred to it for the outcome of the proceedings at national lev-
el (
11
). This generosity may be easily used for manipulative purposes. Litigants
seeking to bring about a determination on a controversial issue under one of
the constitutive treaties have on quite a number of occasions invented im-
aginative strategies to reach their goal through the preliminary procedure. In
Meilicke
(
12
), where the hypothetical character of the case was too obvious, the
Court declined to give a ruling on the reference; in
Foglia
v
Novello
(
13
) and
Mangold
(
14
), where the strategic aims of the parties before the court of origin
of the case were better presented in a nicely wrapped story, the Court took the
bait – and even with far-reaching consequences.
The third observation concerns the role of the Court. Although the Court
certainly did not intend to increase its role within the framework of the in-
tegration process, it
de facto
brought about precisely that result because
Van
Gend en Loos
, in combination with the doctrine of supremacy of Community/
(
8
) See Article 42(2) Verwaltungsgerichtsordnung (Code of judicial procedure in administrative
matters).
(
9
) See Case C-115/09
Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz
[2011] ECR I-3673, paragraphs 51-59.
(
10
) Case C-370/12
Pringle
, judgment of 27 November 2012, paragraphs 115-129.
(
11
) See ultimately Case C-300/11
ZZ
, judgment of 4 June 2013, paragraphs 36, 37; Case C-186/12
Impacto Azul
, judgment of 20 June 2013, paragraphs 26-28.
(
12
) Case C-83/91
Meilicke
[1992] ECR I-4871, paragraphs 25-33.
(
13
) Case 244/80
Foglia
v
Novello
[1981] ECR 3045.
(
14
) Case C-144/04
Mangold
[2005] ECR I-9981, paragraphs 32-39.
