Action brought on 28 November 2023 – Asociația Inițiativa pentru Justiție v Commission
(Case T-1126/23)
Language of the case: English
Parties
Applicant: Asociația Inițiativa pentru Justiție (Constanţa, Romania) (represented by: V.-D. Oanea, lawyer, and C. Zatschler, SC)
Defendant: European Commission
Form of order sought
The applicant claims that the Court should:
annul the Commission Decision (EU) 2023/1786 of 15 September 2023 repealing Decision 2006/928/EC establishing a mechanism for cooperation and verification of progress in Romania to address specific benchmarks in the areas of judicial reform and the fight against corruption 1 ; and
order the Commission to bear its own costs and pay those of the applicant.
Pleas in law and main arguments
In support of the action, the applicant relies on three pleas in law.
First plea in law, alleging manifest errors of assessment and errors of law in concluding that the benchmarks set by Decision 2006/928/EC establishing a mechanism for cooperation and verification of progress in Romania to address specific benchmarks in the areas of judicial reform and the fight against corruption (“the CVM”) had been met.
Second plea in law, alleging infringement of the duty state reasons enshrined in Article 296 TFEU, Article 41 of the Charter and general principles of EU law.
Third plea in law, alleging infringement of Articles 2 and 49 TEU and essential procedural requirements in not obtaining agreement of the Parliament and the Council before ceasing to apply the CVM, and before repealing it.
The CVM was required both politically and legally to permit Romania to become a Member State of the European Union notwithstanding not meeting all the Copenhagen Criteria and not fully complying with Article 49 TEU, which posits full compliance with Article 2 TEU as a conditio sine qua non of accession.
The establishment of the CVM was thus not a discretionary unilateral decision of the Commission and to ensure a parallelism with the conditions of its institution, the abrogation of the CVM likewise required at the very least the consent of both the Parliament and the Council. Without it being necessary to determine whether the majorities prescribed by Article 49 TEU (unanimity in Council and simple majority in Parliament) would have been required, no effective consent on the part of either of these Institutions was requested or obtained by the Commission.
The Commission moreover ceased monitoring under the CVM without awaiting the two other Institutions’ feedback, thereby presenting the other Institutions with a fait accompli and sabotaging its own ability to carry out the assessments incumbent on it in later proposing to abrogate the CVM.
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1 OJ 2023, L 229, p. 94.