Case T-498/24: Action brought on 20 December 2024 – FH and FJ v Commission and EACEA
Date: 2024-12-20
Institutions: General Court
Subjects: EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, action programme, call for proposals, civil society, data protection, disclosure of information, financial aid, maladministration, public awareness campaign, transparency in decision-making








C_202501540EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2025/1540


17.3.2025






Action brought on 20 December 2024 – FH and FJ v Commission and EACEA


(Case T-498/24)

(C/2025/1540)
Language of the case: English

Parties


Applicants: FH and FJ (represented by: O. Jansen, lawyer)

Defendants: European Commission and European Education and Culture Executive Agency

Form of order sought

The applicants claim that the Court should:






—


annul Commission Implementing Decision C(2024) 5832 final of August 14, 2024;










—


annul the decisions of the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) of 20 November 2023 and 19 April 2024 rejecting the application for a grant in the context of the call for proposals ‘Promote civil society organisations’ awareness of, capacity building and implementation of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (CERV-2023-CHAR-LITI) under the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme Work Programme 2023-2024;










—


order the defendants to pay the costs pursuant to Article 140(b) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court.





Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicants rely on five pleas in law.






1.


First plea in law, alleging wrong application of the standards of legality according to Article 22 of Council Regulation (EC) No 58/2003 (1). Both the Commission and the EACEA erred in the application of the duty to give reasons according to Article 41.2 CFR (Charter of Fundamental Rights). As a result from this the Commission also erred in its qualification of the complaints of the applicant as not identifying procedural failings or factual or manifest errors. The evaluation process itself was marred by significant errors and lacked transparency. The evaluators failed to properly assess the key aspects of the applicant’s proposal, which has led to an unjust outcome. Furthermore, the Commission’s refusal to reconsider the merits of the evaluation overlooks the fact that serious errors were made in the interpretation and application of the evaluation criteria.










2.


Second plea in law, alleging infringement of the right to good administration. The Commission used the technique to frame the complaints as considerations that lay outside the scope of the redress procedure, and by doing so applied the wrong standard of review which is also an infringement of the right to good administration. The delay in providing a decision, coupled with the lack of transparency in the communication of the evaluation results, significantly undermines the fairness of the process. The delay in processing the applicants request, and the failure to provide timely and adequate explanations, reflects a breach of the principles of good administration.










3.


Third plea in law, alleging wrong application of Regulation 1725/2018 (2). The Commission unlawfully considers that this Regulation prohibits the disclosure of the names of the experts that are already made public in a list of experts on the Europa website according to Article 38 of the Financial Regulation.










4.


Fourth plea in law, alleging that the Agency’s act is unlawful because of reasons specifically related to the proposal. The Commission unlawfully did not recognise this. The proposal met the award criteria for the call CERV-2023-CHAR-LITI, given that the proposal provided sufficiently strong arguments for several points of the Evaluation Summary Report.










5.


Fifth plea in law, alleging that the Commission and the EACEA are liable for the damage the applicants suffered as a result of the rejection of their application for a grant in the context of the call for proposals ‘Promote civil society organisations’ awareness of, capacity building and implementation of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (CERV-2023-CHAR-LITI) under the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme Work Programme 2023-2024.






(1)  Council Regulation (EC) No 58/2003 of 19 December 2002 laying down the statute for executive agencies to be entrusted with certain tasks in the management of Community programmes (OJ 2003, L 11, p. 1).

(2)  Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2018 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 and Decision No 1247/2002/EC (OJ 2018, L 295, p. 39).


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/1540/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)