Case T‑198/12 R

Federal Republic of Germany

v

European Commission

(Interim relief — Limit values for antimony, arsenic, barium, lead and mercury in toys — Commission’s refusal to approve in full the national provisions notified by the German authorities and maintaining limit values for those substances — Application for interim measures — Admissibility — Urgency — Prima facie case — Weighing up of the interests)

Summary — Order of the President of the General Court, 15 May 2013

1.      Application for interim measures — Suspension of operation of a measure — Interim measures — Conditions for granting — Prima facie case — Urgency — Serious and irreparable damage — Cumulative nature — Balancing of all the interests involved — Discretion of the court hearing the application for interim relief

(Arts 256(1) TFEU, 278 TFEU and 279 TFEU; Rules of Procedure of the General Court, Art. 104(2))

2.      Application for interim measures — Interim measures — Aim — Full effectiveness of the future decision on the merits without prejudging its sense or depriving it of effect — Application seeking measures outside the context of the main dispute and requiring a prima facie assessment of matters foreign to it — Inadmissibility — Discretion of the court hearing the application for interim relief — Effects of the interim decision capable of going beyond those attaching to a judgment of annulment

(Art. 279 TFEU; Rules of Procedure of the General Court, Art. 104)

3.      Application for interim measures — Interim measures — Application for interim measures in the context of an action for annulment of a negative decision — Admissibility

(Art. 279 TFEU; Rules of Procedure of the General Court, Art. 104)

4.      Application for interim measures — Suspension of operation of a measure — Conditions for granting — Prima facie case

(Art. 278 TFEU)

5.      Approximation of laws — Article 114 TFEU — Procedure for approval of national provisions in derogation — Application seeking maintenance of pre-existing national provisions — Possibility of the applicant Member State basing its request on an assessment of the public health risk different from that used by the EU legislature — Obligation to establish a higher level of public health protection than the EU harmonisation measure — Duty to comply with the principle of proportionality

(Art. 114(4) and (6) TFEU)

6.      Application for interim measures — Interim measures — Urgency — Serious and irreparable damage — Burden of proof

(Art. 279 TFEU)

7.      Application for interim measures — Interim measures — Conditions for granting — Urgency — Protection of health — Precautionary principle — To be taken into account by the court hearing the application for interim relief

(Art. 279 TFEU)

1.      See the text of the decision.

(see paras 20-22, 80)

2.      See the text of the decision.

(see paras 28, 33, 35, 36)

3.      See the text of the decision.

(see paras 28-30, 32, 39)

4.      In interim proceedings, the condition relating to a prima facie case is satisfied where at least one of the pleas put forward by the applicant in support of the main action appears, at first sight, to be relevant and in any event not unfounded. It is sufficient that the plea raises complex and delicate issues which, at first sight, cannot be rejected as irrelevant, but require a thorough examination, which is reserved for the court with jurisdiction to determine the substance of the case, or indeed that it follows from the parties’ arguments that there is, in the context of the main proceedings, a significant legal controversy, the solution of which is not immediately obvious.

(see para. 40)

5.      In the context of the adoption of a measure harmonising legislation, a Member State may, in order to justify maintaining its national provisions, put forward the fact that its assessment of the risk to public health is different from that made by the EU legislature in the harmonisation measure concerned. The applicant Member State need only establish, on that occasion, that its national rules ensure a higher level of protection of public health than does the EU law harmonisation measure and that they do not go beyond what is necessary to attain that objective.

(see paras 53, 64)

6.      See the text of the decision.

(see para. 68)

7.      The court hearing the application for interim relief must also take account of those considerations, based on the precautionary principle and relating to the existence and seriousness of potential risks for health, when it is called upon to settle the question whether the legal measure at issue is, with a sufficient degree of probability, likely to cause serious and irreparable damage to health. In particular, it cannot dismiss such damage as being purely hypothetical on the sole ground that scientific uncertainty remains as to the possible risks to health.

(see para. 73)