ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE COURT
21 October 2024 (*)
( Appeal – Application to intervene – Second paragraph of Article 40 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union – No interest in the result of the case )
In Case C‑146/24 P,
APPEAL under Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, brought on 23 February 2024,
Fugro NV, established in Leidschendam (Netherlands), represented by T.C. Gerverdinck, advocaat,
appellant,
the other party to the proceedings being:
Council of the European Union, represented by E. d’Ursel, K. Pavlaki and G. Rugge, acting as Agents,
defendant at first instance,
supported by:
European Commission, represented by A. Armenia, L. Nicolae and W. Roels, acting as Agents,
intervener in the appeal,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE COURT,
having regard to the proposal of A. Kumin, Judge-Rapporteur,
after hearing the Advocate General, A.M. Collins,
makes the following
Order
1        By its appeal, Fugro NV is seeking to have set aside the order of the General Court of the European Union of 15 December 2023, Fugro v Council (T‑143/23, ‘the order under appeal’, EU:T:2023:873), by which the General Court dismissed as inadmissible its action for the annulment in part of Council Directive (EU) 2022/2523 of 14 December 2022 on ensuring a global minimum level of taxation for multinational enterprise groups and large-scale domestic groups in the Union (OJ 2022 L 328, p. 1).
2        By document lodged at the Court Registry on 31 May 2024, the European Commission applied for leave to intervene in Case C‑146/24 P in support of the form of order sought by the Council of the European Union. The President of the Court granted that application by decision of 27 June 2024.
3        By document lodged at the Court Registry on 31 May 2024, Koninklijke Vereniging van Nederlandse Reders (Royal Association of Netherlands Shipowners) applied, under the second paragraph of Article 40 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, for leave to intervene in this case in support of the form of order sought by Fugro. None of the parties to the present appeal lodged observations on that application.
The application to intervene
4        The second paragraph of Article 40 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union provides that any person may intervene before the Courts of the European Union if that person can establish an interest in the result of a case submitted to one of those Courts.
5        In accordance with settled case-law, the concept of an ‘interest in the result of a case’, within the meaning of that provision, is to be defined in the light of the precise subject matter of the dispute and be understood as meaning a direct, existing interest in the ruling on the forms of order sought, and not as an interest in relation to the pleas in law or arguments raised. The words ‘result of a case’ refer to the final decision sought, as set out in the operative part of the decision disposing of the proceedings (orders of the President of the Court of 27 February 2015, Mory and Others v Commission, C‑33/14 P, EU:C:2015:135, paragraph 7, and of 10 March 2023, Illumina v Commission, C‑611/22 P, EU:C:2023:205, paragraph 6 and the case-law cited).
6        It must, in particular, be ascertained, whether the applicant for leave to intervene is directly affected by the contested measure and whether its interest in the result of the case is established. In principle, an interest in the result of the case can be considered to be sufficiently direct only to the extent to which that result is likely to alter the legal position of the person seeking leave to intervene (order of the President of the Court of 10 March 2023, Illumina v Commission, C‑611/22 P, EU:C:2023:205, paragraph 7 and the case-law cited).
7        However, it is settled case-law of the Court of Justice that a representative professional association, whose objective is to protect the interests of its members may be granted leave to intervene where the case raises questions of principle which are liable to affect those interests (see, inter alia, order of the President of the Court of 27 February 2019, Uniwerytet Wrocławski and Poland v REA, C‑515/17 P and C‑561/17 P, EU:C:2019:174, paragraph 10). Therefore, the requirement that such an association has a direct, existing interest in the result of a case in which it wishes to intervene must be found to be fulfilled where that association establishes that it is in such a situation, irrespective of whether the result of the case is likely to alter the legal position of the association as such (order of the President of the Court of 27 April 2023, EUIPO v Nowhere, C‑337/22 P, EU:C:2023:409, paragraph 9).
8        Indeed, that broad interpretation of the right to intervene in favour of representative associations is intended to facilitate assessment of the context of such cases submitted to the EU Courts while avoiding multiple individual interventions which would compromise the efficiency and the proper course of the procedure. Thus, intervention by such an association offers an overall perspective of the collective interests of its members which it defends and which are affected by a question of principle on which the result of the case depends (order of the President of the Court of 27 April 2023, EUIPO v Nowhere, C‑337/22 P, EU:C:2023:409, paragraph 10 and the case-law cited).
9        Therefore, in accordance with the case-law referred to in paragraph 7 of the present order, a professional association may be granted leave to intervene in a case, first, if it represents a significant number of natural or legal persons active in the field concerned by the dispute, second, if its objects include the protection of the interests of its members, third, if the case may raise questions of principle affecting the activity concerned and, lastly, fourth, if the collective interests of its members may be affected significantly by the forthcoming judgment (order of the President of the Court of 27 April 2023, EUIPO v Nowhere, C‑337/22 P, EU:C:2023:409, paragraph 11 and the case-law cited).
10      In support of its application for leave to intervene, the Royal Association of Netherlands Shipowners claims to have an interest in the result of the case for two reasons.
11      In the first place, it argues that, in finding, in paragraph 47 and in point 2 of the operative part of the order under appeal that there was no longer any need to adjudicate on its application to intervene brought at first instance, the General Court suspended the processing of that application. As a result of that suspension, the Royal Association of Netherlands Shipowners contends that it has an interest in the result of the case since, at the end of the proceedings on appeal, the Court of Justice will have to adjudicate on that application.
12      In the second place, the Royal Association of Netherlands Shipowners submits that it should be granted leave to intervene in the present appeal since (i) it represents an appreciable number of undertakings in the shipping sector concerned, (ii) its objects include that of protecting the interests of its members in respect of shipping matters, in the broadest sense, (iii) the case which gave rise to the order under appeal raises questions of principle affecting the functioning of the shipping sector, and (iv) the tax treatment provided for in Article 17 of Directive 2022/2523 is likely to affect the economic situation of its members negatively.
13      In that regard, it is nevertheless sufficient to state that the arguments put forward by the Royal Association of Netherlands Shipowners in support of its application for leave to intervene do not relate to the result of the case before the Court of Justice in the context of the present appeal, which concerns the admissibility of the action for annulment in part brought before the General Court by Fugro against Directive 2022/2523, but rather relate to the ruling on its application to intervene at first instance and on the result of the case, relating to the legality of that directive, which will come once more before the General Court if the Court of Justice decides to set aside the order under appeal and finds, as a consequence, that Fugro has standing to bring proceedings against that directive (see, to that effect, orders of the President of the Court of 27 February 2015, Mory and Others v Commission, C‑33/14 P, EU:C:2015:135, paragraph 11, and of 9 October 2019, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale v Commission, C‑352/19 P, EU:C:2019:856, paragraph 12).
14      Accordingly, the Royal Association of Netherlands Shipowners cannot be regarded as having a direct interest in the result of the case in which it is seeking leave to intervene, within the meaning of the case-law referred to paragraphs 5 to 9 of the present order.
15      It follows from all of the above considerations that the Royal Association of Netherlands Shipowners has not established that it has an interest in the result of the case, within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 40 of the Court of Justice of the European Union, and that its application to intervene must therefore be dismissed.
Costs
16      Under Article 138(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, applicable to proceedings on appeal pursuant to Article 184(1) thereof, the unsuccessful party is to be ordered to pay the costs if they have been applied for in the successful party’s pleadings. Since the Royal Association of Netherlands Shipowners has been unsuccessful in its application to intervene but none of the parties have applied for costs, it must be ordered to bear its own costs.
On those grounds, the President of the Court hereby orders:
1.      The application for leave to intervene submitted by Koninklijke Vereniging van Nederlandse Reders is dismissed.
2.      Koninklijke Vereniging van Nederlandse Reders shall bear its own costs related to the present application to intervene.
Luxembourg, 21 October 2024.
A. Calot Escobar
K. Lenaerts
Registrar
President
*      Language of the case: English.