Keywords

Summary



Keywords

Accession of new Member States to the Communities – 2003 Act of Accession – Commission guidelines adopted pursuant to Directive 2002/21 – No publication in the Official Journal in the language of a new Member State, an official language of the European Union – Whether this may be relied upon as against individuals

(2003 Act of Accession, Art. 58; European Parliament and Council Directive 2002/21, Arts 15 and 16)

Summary

Article 58 of the Act concerning the conditions of accession of the Czech Republic, the Republic of Estonia, the Republic of Cyprus, the Republic of Latvia, the Republic of Lithuania, the Republic of Hungary, the Republic of Malta, the Republic of Poland, the Republic of Slovenia and the Slovak Republic to the European Union (Act of Accession 2003) and the adjustments to the Treaties on which the European Union is founded must be interpreted as not precluding a national regulatory authority (‘NRA’) from referring to the Commission Guidelines of 2002 on market analysis and the assessment of significant market power under the Community regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services in a decision by which that authority imposes certain regulatory obligations on an operator of electronic communications services, notwithstanding the fact that those guidelines have not been published in the Official Journal of the European Union in the language of the Member State in question, even though that language is an official language of the Union.

Articles 15 and 16 of Directive 2002/21, on a common regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services, which are expressly addressed to the NRAs, constitute the legal basis for those Guidelines. They do not lay down any obligation capable of being imposed, directly or indirectly, on individuals. Accordingly, the fact that those guidelines have not been published in the language of a Member State in the Official Journal of the European Union does not prevent the NRA of that Member State from referring to them in a decision addressed to an individual.

Article 58 of the Act of Accession 2003 does not require the Council, the Commission or the European Central Bank to translate into the nine new languages listed in that provision all the acts of the institutions and the European Central Bank adopted before the accession of the new Member States. Article 58, which lays down the rules on the use of languages and on the conditions concerning the publication of acts adopted by the institutions and the European Central Bank before that accession, merely provides that, of those acts, only measures drawn up in languages of the new Member States which constitute official EU languages are to be authentic, as from accession, under the same conditions as legislation drawn up in the other official languages and are to be published in the Official Journal of the European Union whenever that legislation was to be so published. Accordingly, Article 58 implies that the Member States and the institutions are to select acts for publication in the Official Journal and does not rule out the possibility that certain acts may not be published. Consequently, Article 58 of the Act of Accession 2003 does not require the Polish-language version of the Guidelines of 2002 to be published in the Official Journal.

(see paras 31, 34, 37, 39, operative part)