The ‘transparency’ or ‘notification’ Directive 2015/1535 (the successor to Directive 98/34) featured twice at the CJEU yesterday. In Case C‑711/19 Admiral Sportwetten, the Court held that a national tax rule that provides for taxation of the operation of betting terminals does not constitute a ‘technical regulation’ that needs to be notified under the Directive. In Case C-514/19 Union des industries de la protection des plantes it held more directly than Kokott AG had opined, that France had validly informed the Commission of the need to take measures intended, in particular, to protect bees by banning the use of 3 active substances of the neonicotinoid family which had been authorised for use under the relevant EU procedure. That procedure is regulated by Directive 1107/2009 on plant protection products.
The complication in the case in essence is a result of the dual procedure for national safeguard measures as a result of the existence of both the PPP and the notification Directive. May a communication of a Member State under the Notification Directive, double as notification of emergency measures under the PPP Directive? The CJEU held it can, provided the notification contains a clear presentation of the evidence showing, first, that those active substances are likely to constitute a serious risk to human or animal health or to the environment and, second, that that risk cannot be controlled without the adoption, as a matter of urgency, of the measures taken by the Member State concerned, and where the Commission failed to ask that Member State whether that communication must be treated as the official provision of information under the regulation.
The Court referred to its findings in C-116/16 Fidenato, that a Member State’s power, provided by an EU act, to adopt emergency measures requires compliance with both the substantive conditions and procedural conditions laid down by that act (a requirement, I would add, which conversely also applies to the European Commission), but adds that a notification to the Commission under Article 71(1) of Regulation 1107/2009 requires only that the Member State concerned ‘officially informs’ that institution, without having to do so in a particular manner.
More generally, the Court emphasises the principle of sound administration imposed upon the EC, which explains its insistence on the EC having proactively to ensure the Member State concerned be aware of its obligations under the EU law concerned or indeed adjacent law. A certain parallel here may be made with the rules of civil procedure which require from those soliciting the courts that they approach the court with clean hands.
The Court in essence, I submit, finds that, the consequences for the Member State concerned in failing to meet the requirements for it to be able to make use of a safeguard provision in secondary law being so great, the conditions imposed on them must be met by a strict due diligence on behalf of the European Commission.
Of note is that the judgment does not entail any finding on the substantive legality of the French ban.
Geert.
gavc law - geert van calster 