Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:1998:197
Date: 1998-05-05
Language of the case: French
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Culture;Industrial policy
Procedure: Action for annulment - unfounded

Summary of the Judgment
Industry — Action necessary to ensure the competitiveness of industry — Council decision con­
cerning the adoption of a multiannual programme to promote linguistic diversity of the Com­
munity in the information society — Legal basis — Article 130 of the Treaty — Incidental or
secondary effects on cultural life — Irrelevant
(EC Treaty, Arts 128 and 130; Council Decision 96/664)
The Council was entitled to adopt Decision
96/664 on the adoption of a multiannual pro­
gramme to promote linguistic diversity of the
Community in the information society solely
on the basis of Article 130 of the Treaty, a
provision which enables the Community to
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SUMMARY — CASE C-42/97
decide on specific measures in support of
action taken in the Member States to ensure
the competitiveness of Community industry.
The wording of the tide of a measure cannot
by itself determine its legal basis and, in this
case, the words 'to promote ... linguistic diver­
sity' appearing in the title of the contested
decision cannot be isolated from the measure
as a whole and interpreted independently. It
does not appear from the aim or content of
the decision in question that it is concerned,
indissociably, with both industry and culture.
Although it is not disputed that the pro­
gramme will have beneficial effects for the
dissemination of cultural works, in particular
by improving the tools available for the task
of translation, these are indirect and incidental
as compared with the direct effects sought,
which are of an economic nature, and do not
justify basing the decision on Article 128 of
the Treaty as well.
Moreover, that interpretation conforms with
the actual text of Article 128(4) of the Treaty,
according to which the Community is to take
cultural aspects into account in its action
under other provisions of the Treaty. It is
clear from that provision that not every
description of the cultural aspects of Com­
munity action necessarily implies that recourse
must be had to Article 128 as the legal basis,
where culture does not constitute an essential
and indissociable component of the other
component on which the action in question is
based but is merely incidental or secondary
to it.
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