Judgment;Summary — ECLI:EU:C:2022:427
Date: 2022-06-02
Language of the case: Romanian
Court formation: Seventh Chamber
Subject matter: Area of freedom, security and justice;Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Romania

Anonymised version 
Translation C-196/21 – 1 
Case C-196/21 
Request for a preliminary ruling 
Date lodged: 
26 March 2021 
Referring court: 
Tribunalul Ilfov (Romania) 
Date of the decision to refer: 
4 February 2021 
Appellant-applicant: 
SR 
Appellant-defendant: 
EW  
EW 
Interveners: 
FB 
CX 
IK 
      
EN 
REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING OF 4.2.2021 – CASE C-196/21 
 
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[…] 
TRIBUNALUL ILFOV 
Civil Division 
[…] 
REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING 
The Tribunalul Ilfov (Regional Court, Ilfov, Romania), at the request of the 
appellant and defendant at first instance, EW […], and on the basis of Article 267 
of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), requests from 
the  
COURT OF JUSTICE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 
an answer to the following request for a preliminary ruling on the 
interpretation of Article 5(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1393/2007 [of the 
European Parliament and of the Council] of 13 November 2007 on the service 
in the Member States of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil or 
commercial matters (service of documents), and repealing Council 
Regulation (EC) No 1348/2000 […]: 
‘Where a court decides to summon interveners in civil proceedings, is the 
‘applicant’, within the meaning of Article 5 of Regulation (EC) No 1393/2007, the 
court in the Member State which decides to summon the interveners or the litigant 
in the proceedings pending before that court?’ 
Subject matter of the dispute. Relevant facts 
1 By civil judgment […] of 4 July 2016 delivered in the case […] before the 
Judecătoria Buftea (Court of First Instance, Buftea, Romania), that court partly 
upheld the main application, brought by the applicant-defendant SR against the 
defendant-applicant EW, partly upheld the counterclaim brought by the defendant-
applicant EW against the applicant-defendant SR and ordered: the dissolution of 
the marriage by consent; the reacquisition by the applicant of her surname prior to 
marriage; the determination of the habitual place of residence of the minor child 
[…] as being with the mother; the joint exercise of parental authority; the 
maintenance of personal links between the defendant and the minor child, by 
agreement, in accordance with the following schedule: the first and third weekend 
of each month, from Friday, at 2:00 p.m. (or at the end of the school day), to 7:00 
p.m. on Sunday, the father having the right to collect the child and the obligation 
to return her to her mother’s home; half of the school holidays: in the first holiday 
week of October, in the first holiday week of December, in the first holiday week 
of [OR. 2] February, in the first holiday week of April and one month of the 
summer holidays, from 1 to 31 July, the father having the right to collect the child 
and the obligation to return her to the mother’s home; maintenance of the minor 
SR 
 
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child to be paid by the defendant in the sum of 600 Romanian lei (RON) per 
month, commencing on the date of delivery of the judgment and continuing until 
the child reaches the age of majority, such sum to be indexed each quarter by 
reference to the rate of inflation. 
2 On 7 April 2017, an appeal was brought before the Tribunalul Ilfov (Regional 
Court, Ilfov, ‘the Tribunalul’) […] by which the appellant-defendant EW sought 
an order against the respondent-applicant SR setting aside the civil judgment […] 
of 4 July 2016, delivered in the case […] by the Judecătoria Buftea (Court of First 
Instance, Buftea), on the ground that that court lacked jurisdiction or, in the 
alternative, for the partial variation of the judgment under appeal to the following 
effect: the determination of the habitual place of residence of the minor child […] 
at the father’s residence in France or, in the alternative, the determination of the 
minor child’s habitual residence alternately, for one week each month at the 
residence of the father in Romania and for one week each month at the residence 
of the mother, or for two weeks with the father and two weeks with the mother; 
the ‘non-resident’ parent to pay maintenance for the minor child in the sum of one 
quarter of his or her monthly income until the child reaches the age of majority or, 
in the alternative, compensation of the parents’ maintenance payments for the 
child, with each parent continuing to contribute equally during the time when the 
child has her habitual residence with one or other of the parents, including for the 
child’s educational expenses. 
3 An appeal against the same civil judgment […] of 4 July 2016, delivered in the 
case […] by the Judecătoria Buftea (Court of First Instance, Buftea), was also 
brought by the appellant-applicant SR, who asks the court to uphold her appeal 
and partly vary the civil judgment under appeal so as to uphold the claim set out in 
her summons, as amended, in its entirety, which is to say, ordering that parental 
authority be exercised solely by the mother, cancelling the visiting schedule 
established for the father’s benefit, varying the amount of maintenance which the 
father is liable to pay for the child and varying the costs order. 
4 On 5 July 2018, applications to intervene in the proceedings made by FB (the 
brother of the minor child), CX (the sister of the minor child) and IK (the 
grandfather of the minor child) were registered in the case file, in support of the 
forms of order sought by the appellant-defendant EW. 
5 For the purposes of assessing the admissibility, in principle, of the applications to 
intervene, the Regional Court decided at a hearing on 15 September 2020 that the 
two parties should be required to produce translations of the summonses/orders 
issued by the court with a view to service upon the interveners in accordance with 
the provisions of Regulation (EC) No 1393/2007 […]. 
6 The parties to the proceedings refuse to advance the cost of translating into French 
the summonses/orders issued by the court with a view to service upon the 
interveners, taking the view that, on a correct interpretation of Article 5(2) of 
Regulation (EC) No 1393/2007 […], the ‘applicant’ is the court, and it is 
REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING OF 4.2.2021 – CASE C-196/21 
 
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consequently the court that should bear the costs occasioned by the service of 
procedural documents. [OR. 3] 
Applicable provisions of national law 
Legea nr. 134 din 1 iulie 2010 privind Codul de procedură civilă (Law 
No 134/2010 of 1 July 2010 establishing the Code of Civil Procedure) 
Article 61 ‘Forms’ 
‘1. Any person having an interest may intervene in proceedings between the 
original parties. 
… 
3. The intervention is ancillary when it is solely in support of the case of one of 
the parties. 
Article 63 ‘Ancillary intervention’ 
1. An application for ancillary intervention shall be made in writing and shall 
contain the information referred to in Article 148(1), which shall apply mutatis 
mutandis. 
2. An ancillary intervention shall be permitted up to the closure of the oral part 
of the procedure, at any time during the main hearing and in the context of 
extraordinary remedies. 
Article 64 ‘Procedure. Remedies’ 
1. The court shall transmit the application to intervene and copies of any 
accompanying documents to the parties. 
2. After hearing the intervener and the parties, the court shall give a ruling, by 
reasoned order, on the admissibility, in principle, of the intervention. 
3. The order may be challenged only in conjunction with the merits. 
4. In the event that an appeal is upheld against an order by which the court has 
dismissed an application to intervene as inadmissible, the decision shall be set 
aside by operation of law and the case shall be re-examined by the court before 
which the application to intervene was made from the point at which the 
admissibility in principle of the application was debated. 
Relevant provisions of EU law 
The Tribunalul considers to be applicable to the present case the provisions of 
Article 5(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1393/2007 of 13 November 2007 on the 
service in the Member States of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil or 
SR 
 
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commercial matters (service of documents), and repealing Council Regulation 
(EC) No 1348/2000, pursuant to which ‘the applicant shall bear any costs of 
translation prior to the transmission of the document, without prejudice to any 
possible subsequent decision by the court or competent authority on liability for 
such costs.’ 
The reasons for which the court has made the request for a preliminary 
ruling 
Since the question raised specifically calls for interpretation of Regulation (EC) 
No 1393/2007 […], which applies to the pending proceedings in light of the 
international aspects relating to the nationality and place of residence of the 
interveners, given that different opinions have been expressed in the course of the 
proceedings as regards who is to advance the costs associated with performance of 
the summons procedure (‘service of documents’) which will have an effect on the 
outcome of the case, in light of the differing interpretations of that regulation, and 
given that the question has been raised in a case before a national court against 
whose decisions there is no judicial remedy under national law, which renders a 
request for a preliminary ruling mandatory, in accordance with Article 267 TFEU, 
the Tribunalul acknowledges that it must refer to the Court of Justice of the 
European Union the question for a preliminary ruling formulated herein. [OR. 4]. 
The reasons for which the resolution of the dispute depends on the answer to 
the question of law 
The outcome of the dispute depends on the answer to this question of law because 
the interested party’s refusal to advance the costs associated with translating into 
French the procedural documents which must compulsorily be served on the 
interveners means that the proceedings could be suspended and judgment 
prevented from being given in the case. That could result in the parties being 
deprived of the [possibility of obtaining a decision] on the merits regarding the 
legal relationships between them, if appeals were to become time-barred. 
Case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union 
The Tribunalul has investigated but has been unable to find any relevant EU case-
law on the point. As regards specifically the provisions of Article 5 of Regulation 
(EC) No 1393/2007 […], three cases have been identified […] (C-384/14, Alta 
Realitat, C-519/13, Alpha Bank Cyprus, and C-325/11, Aider). However, in those 
cases the Court provided interpretation in relation to issues other than that which 
is the subject of the present dispute. 
Opinion of the national court 
The Tribunalul cannot share the view expressed by the appellant-defendant 
regarding who should bear the cost of translating the summonses into French for 
the purposes of service in accordance with Regulation No 1393/2007. 
REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING OF 4.2.2021 – CASE C-196/21 
 
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The autonomous concepts that are relevant to the question under analysis are 
defined unequivocally in Regulation No 1393/2007. They are: transmitting 
agency, receiving agency, applicant and addressee. 
As is clearly stated in Article 2(1) and (2) of Regulation No 1393/2007, a 
‘transmitting agency’ consists in public officers, authorities or other persons 
competent for the transmission of judicial or extrajudicial documents to be served 
in [another] Member State, or in other words, the national authority which sends 
communication/documents to be served, which in this case is the Tribunalul. 
‘Receiving agency’ is defined in Article 2(2) of Regulation No 1393/2007. It 
includes the same sort of individuals/authorities as mentioned in paragraph 1, but 
receives served documents/communications from the transmitting agency. That is 
to say, it is the national authority which receives the communications/documents 
to be served. In the present case the receiving agency is to be identified from 
among the competent French authorities/institutions on the basis [of the] place of 
residence of the interveners. 
As regards the concept of ‘applicant’, it is clear from the provisions of Article 5(1) 
and (2) of Regulation No 1393/2007 properly interpreted that the applicant cannot 
be […] the court (which is the transmitting agency). 
As is clear from the provisions of Article 5(1) of Regulation No 1393/2007, the 
applicant is to be advised by the transmitting agency to which he forwards the 
document [OR. 5] for transmission that the addressee may refuse to accept the 
document if it is not in one of the languages provided for in Article 8. This 
provision therefore clarifies the concepts of applicant and addressee, clearly 
excluding them from the scope of ‘transmitting agency’ and ‘receiving agency’. 
An ‘applicant’ is an individual petitioner, the author of an action, who has an 
interest in service being effected in accordance with Regulation No 1393/2007 in 
connection with the conduct and conclusion of a legal action. An ‘addressee’, is 
the individual upon whom service is effected, the person receiving the documents 
served. Both the applicant and the addressee are parties to the proceedings, 
whereas the court, which, as mentioned, is either the transmitting agency or the 
receiving agency, is not. 
In conclusion, the Tribunalul considers that the concept of ‘applicant’, within the 
meaning of Regulation No 1393/2007 is confined to the persons who have an 
interest in the conduct and conclusion of the appeal proceedings, which is to say 
the appellant-applicant and the appellant-defendant, […]; they are parties to the 
dispute, they have brought appeals against the judgment on the merits and [each of 
them has], in principle, an interest in the conclusion of the appeal proceedings and 
the delivery of a judgment on the merits of the appeal. 
[…] 4 February 2021 
[…]