WRITTEN QUESTION E-1422/00

by Charles Tannock (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(5 May 2000)

Subject: Guardianship of the Treaties

Does the Commission accept that Article 211 of the Consolidated Version of the Treaty establishing the European Community requires the Commission to ensure that the provisions of this Treaty and the measures taken by the institutions pursuant thereto are applied, and, if so, and if the Commission wishes to retain its role as Guardian of the treaties, how is that compatible with remarks made recently

by the head of the European Commission's legal service, Jean-Louis Dewost, and reported in the European Voice, and, in particular, his comment that if a misinterpretation of EU law was isolated to a specific case, we would say we have other priorities?

Joint answer to Written Questions E-1422/00 and E-1428/00 given by Mr Prodi on behalf of the Commission

(18 July 2000)

The Honourable Member rightly refers to Article 211 (ex Article 155) of the EC Treaty and to the role of the Commission as guardian of the treaties which indeed constitutes one of its core tasks.

According to well-established case law of the Court of justice, the Commission is not bound to commence the proceedings provided for in that provision but in this regard has a discretion(1); the Commission alone is competent to decide whether it is appropriate to bring proceedings against a Member State for failure to fulfil its obligations and to determine the conduct or omission attributable to the Member State on the basis of which those proceedings should be brought(2). Indeed, without having such a margin of discretion the Commission could not fulfil efficiently its role as guardian of the Treaties. It should also be noted that a comparable margin of discretion is generally granted to national authorities having the task of prosecuting violations of the law in the public interest.

When exercising its discretion the Commission has to take into consideration a wide range of aspects, including the gravity of the infringement, its significance or its aptitude as a model case, as well as the Commission's resources. After careful consideration of all circumstances, the Commission may in a given case decide to give less priority to commencing infringement proceedings in a matter involving exclusively a problematic application, in an isolated case, of national rules that are as such compatible with Community law. It also needs to be taken into account that in such individual cases national courts might provide more advantageous remedies than infringement proceedings, given that such a proceedings could last longer and do not allow illegal measures to be quashed, or judicial injunctions to be issued against the administration or compensation for damages to be granted. This does not prejudice by any means the paramount importance, stressed repeatedly by the Commission, of individual complaints for detecting violations of Community law. The Commission's concern is merely to ensure that the most important infringement cases continue to be treated quickly and efficiently in the future.

It is to these considerations that the remarks of the Director-general of the Commission Legal service, mentioned by the Honourable Member, are related.

(1) Case 247/87 Star Fruit Company v. Commission [1989] ECR 291, point 11.

(2) Case C-431/92 Commission v. Germany [1995] ECR I-2189, point 22.