Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2014:289
Date: 2014-04-29
Language of the case: German
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;External relations;Wine
Procedure: Action for annulment - unfounded
Origin: Germany

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber), 7 October 2014 1. Judicial proceedings — Intervention — Pleas different from those of the main party supported — Admissibility — Condition — Connection with the subject-matter of the dispute (Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 40) 2. International agreements — International agriculture and fisheries agreements — International Organisation of Vine and Wine — European Union not a party to that agreement — Decision of the Council of the European Union establishing the positions to be adopted by the Member States on behalf of the European Union in that organisation which is called upon to adopt acts having legal effects — Lawfulness (Art. 218(9) TFEU) 1. Pursuant to Article 40 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, a party who is granted leave to intervene in a case submitted to the Court may not alter the subject-matter of the dispute as defined by the forms of order sought by the main parties and the pleas in law raised by those parties. It follows that arguments submitted by an intervener are not admissible unless they fall within the framework provided by those forms of order and pleas in law. (see para. 27) 2. The European Union, while not a party to the Agreement Establishing the International Organisation of Vine and Wine, concluded on 3 April 2001 (the OIV Agreement), is entitled to establish a position to be adopted on its behalf with regard to OIV recommendations, to be voted on at that organisation’s General Assembly, which relate to new oenological practices, methods of analysis for determining the composition of products of the wine sector, or purity and identification specifications of substances used in oenological practices, and are capable of decisively influencing the content of the legislation adopted by the EU legislature in the area of the common organisation of the wine markets. First of all, there is nothing in the wording of Article 218(9) TFEU to prevent the European Union from adopting a decision establishing a position to be adopted on its behalf in a body set up by an international agreement to which it is not a party. In addition, the OIV falls within the remit of the Common Agricultural Policy and, more specifically, the common organisation of the wine markets, an area which is regulated for the most part by the EU legislature in the exercise of its competence under Article 43 TFEU. Where an area of law falls within a competence of the European Union of that kind, the fact that the European Union did not take part in the international agreement in question does not prevent it from exercising that competence by establishing, through its institutions, a position to be adopted on its behalf in the body set up by that agreement, in particular through the Member States which are party to that agreement acting jointly in its interest. Lastly, such recommendations constitute ‘acts having legal effects’ for the purposes of Article 218(9) TFEU. (see paras 50-52, 63, 64)