Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2013:330
Date: 2013-05-28
Language of the case: French
Subject matter: Budget;Financial provisions;Provisions governing the Institutions
Procedure: Action for annulment - unfounded

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber), 17 September 2013 Budget of the European Union — Budgetary procedure — Declaration by the President of the Parliament that the budget has been definitively adopted — Need for the act also to be signed by the Council — No such need (Arts. 14(1) TEU and 16(1) TEU; Arts. 263 TFUE, 288 TFEU, 289(2) TFEU, 296, first para., TFEU, and 314, first para., and (9) TFEU) The budgetary procedure laid down in Article 314 TFEU is concluded by the adoption of an act based on Article 314(9) TFEU by which the President of the Parliament, in his capacity as an organ of that institution, declares, after verifying that the procedure that the procedure has been conducted lawfully, that the budget has been definitively adopted. That act constitutes the final stage of the procedure for the adoption of the Union’s budget and endows the budget with binding force. While it is true that the introductory paragraph of Article 314 TFEU serves as a reminder that, in accordance with Articles 14(1) TEU and 16(1) TEU, budgetary functions are to be exercised jointly by the Parliament and the Council, no provision in Article 314 TFEU provides for the adoption, at the end of the budgetary procedure, of an act which is to be signed by the Presidents of both the Parliament and the Council. Moreover, the first paragraph of Article 296 TFEU is not applicable in the budgetary procedure established by Article 314 TFEU. Even though the act based on Article 314(9) TFEU is the outcome of a special legislative procedure, it does not, due to the nature of the budget, take the form of a legislative act in the strict sense of the term for the purpose of Articles 288 TFEU and 289(2) TFEU, and is, in any event, a measure open to challenge for the purpose of Article 263 TFEU, since it endows the Union’s budget with binding force. (see paras 50, 54-56, 60, 63)