Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2017:493
Date: 2017-06-22
Language of the case: Bulgarian
Subject matter: External relations;Provisions governing the Institutions;Common foreign and security policy
Procedure: Action for annulment - decision unnecessary;Appeal - successful

Summary — Judgment of the Court (First Chamber), 9 November 2017 1. Judicial proceedings — Decision or regulation replacing the contested measure in the course of proceedings — Application to modify the application — Obligation on the applicant to lodge that request by a separate document — Request made orally at the hearing — Ambiguity in that regard in the Bulgarian language version of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court — Requirement for the General Court to indicate the error to the applicant to enable it to rectify it (Rules of Procedure of the General Court, Art. 86(2)) 2. EU law — Interpretation — Texts in several languages — Rules of Procedure of the General Court — Differences between the various language versions — Rules of procedure authentic in all the language versions — No requirement for the litigant to refer to all the language versions (Arts. 20(2)(d) TFEU and 24, fourth para., TFEU; Rules of Procedure of the General Court, Arts 44, 45 and 227(1)) 3. Appeal — Interest in bringing proceedings — Condition — Appeal incapable of procuring an advantage for the party bringing it (Art. 256 TFEU; Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 56, second para.; Council Decisions 2014/488/ CFSP and (CFSP) 2015/837; Council Regulation No 793/2014) 1. Since the Bulgarian language version of Article 86(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court is ambiguous, in the sense that, contrary to the English language version (‘separate document’) and the French version (‘acte séparé’) of that provision, the Bulgarian language version thereof does not use the word ‘document’, but the term ‘molba’ (‘request’), it is not inconceivable that that ambiguity could induce an applicant to consider that it would be admissible to request the modification of the application orally at the hearing. Additionally, the said request was, subsequently, recorded in the minutes of the oral hearing, which is an official record, pursuant to Article 102(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court. If the General Court considered that the request to modify the application submitted in that way did not comply with the form required by its Rules of Procedure, it was under an obligation, at the very least, to inform the appellant of his error and to place him in a position of being able to rectify it. While it is perfectly in order for modification of the application to be subject to certain formal requirements, such formal requirements do not apply for their own sake but are, on the contrary, intended to ensure the adversarial nature of proceedings and the sound administration of justice. In that regard, Article 86(3) and (4) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court themselves provide that the failure to satisfy certain formalities in the presentation of requests for modifications does not necessarily render them inadmissible. (see paras 20-24) 2. To expect litigants, with regard to a provision of the Rules of Procedure of a Court of the European Union — moreover, adopted and made authentic in all the languages of the case by that jurisdiction itself under the combined provisions of Article 44 and Article 227(1) of those rules — to refer to all the language versions of those rules in order to avoid a possible divergence in the language version which is the language of the case resulting in a finding of inadmissibility would be contrary to their right to address the Courts of the European Union in the official language of their choice, which is provided for both by Article 20(2)(d) TFEU and the fourth paragraph of Article 24 TFEU and also Article 45 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court. (see para. 26) 3. See the text of the decision. (see paras 30-33)