CJEU – Judgment of 24.06.2014 (Grand Chamber) – Case C-658/11 European Parliament v Council – «External relations of the EU – Annulment of the decision on the conclusion of the EU – Mauritius Agreement – Choice of the proper legal basis». Context or Conte
Keywords:
EU - Mauritius Agreement, Operation Atalanta, Choice of the proper legal basis, Conclusion of international agreements, Division of competences between the TEU and the TFEU, Procedure to conclude international agreements ex Article 218 TFEU, Right to beAbstract
In the case C-658/11 European Parliament v Council the CJEU was asked to assess the legitimacy of Council Decision 2011/640/CFSP on the conclusion of the agreement between the EU and Mauritius for the transfer and trial of suspected pirates arrested in the framework of Operation Atalanta. More specifically, whilst the EP agreed with the Council that the said agreement had to be concluded on the basis of Article 37 TEU, it nonetheless sustained that the agreement could not be concluded on the basis of Article 37 TEU alone since the agreement is not exclusively linked to the CFSP but is also linked to other policies of the EU that are based on the TFEU. Moreover, the EP also attached the decision of the Council because the latter institution failed to keep informed the EP at all stages of the procedure leading to the conclusion of the agreement. With its judgement of the 24 June 2014, the CJEU rejected the thesis of the EP. By making reference to its ‘centre of gravity’ test the CJEU decided to focus on the context of Operation Atalanta in which the agreement was concluded and held such link sufficient to exclude the necessity to make recourse to other, incidental, aims of an agreement to integrate the choice of the correct legal basis. On the other hand, the CJEU found that the Council had violated the right of the EP to be kept informed, at all stages, about the negotiations and conclusion of agreements and annulled the contested act. With this judgement the CJEU has contributed in making clear that the respect of procedural requirements between the Council and the EP is important even when the role of the EP is merely passive. At the same time, whilst the case brought by the EP could have been used to clarify the relationship between external action under the CFEP and other instruments of external relations based on the TFEU, the CJEU missed on this opportunity and solved the case formalistically.![](http://revistas.cepc.gob.es/App_Themes/cepcre/img/editor.gif)
Downloads
Issue
Section
CASE LAW COURT OF JUSTICE OF THE EU
License
Copyright
Submission of a manuscript to the RDCE implies having read and accepted the journal's editorial guidelines and instructions for authors. When a work is accepted for publication, it is understood that the author grants the RDCE exclusive rights of reproduction, distribution and, where appropriate, sale of his manuscript for exploitation in all countries of the world in printed version, as well as any other magnetic, optical and digital media.
Authors shall transfer the publishing rights of their manuscript to RDCE so that it may be disseminated and capitalised on Intranets, the Internet and any web portals and wireless devices that the publisher may decide, by placing it at the disposal of users so that the latter may consult it online and extract content from it, print it and/or download and save it. These activities must comply with the terms and conditions outlined on the website hosting the work. However, the RDCE authorises authors of papers published in the journal to include a copy of these papers, once published, on their personal websites and/or other open access digital repositories. Copies must include a specific mention of RDCE, citing the year and issue of the journal in which the article was published, and adding a link to the RDCE website(s).
A year after its publication, the works of the RDCE will be under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivative 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which allows third parties to share the work as long as its author and its first publication is indicated, without the right to commercial exploitation and the elaboration of derivative works.
Plagiarism and scientific fraud
The publication of work that infringes on intellectual property rights is the sole responsibility of the authors, including any conflicts that may occur regarding infringement of copyright. This includes, most importantly, conflicts related to the commission of plagiarism and/or scientific fraud.
Practices constituting scientific plagiarism are as follows:
1. Presenting the work of others as your own.
2. Adopting words or ideas from other authors without due recognition.
3. Not using quotation marks or another distinctive format to distinguish literal quotations.
4. Giving incorrect information about the true source of a citation.
5. The paraphrasing of a source without mentioning the source.
6. Excessive paraphrasing, even if the source is mentioned.
Practices constituting scientific fraud are as follows:
1. Fabrication, falsification or omission of data and plagiarism.
2. Duplicate publication.
3. Conflicts of authorship.
Warning
Any breach of these Rules shall constitute a ground for rejection of the manuscript submitted.