CELEX: C2004/201/15
Language: en
Date: 2004-08-07 00:00:00
Title: Case C-217/04: Action brought on 24 May 2004 by the United Kingdom against the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union

7.8.2004   
            
            
               EN
            
            
               Official Journal of the European Union
            
            
               C 201/8
            
         Action brought on 24 May 2004 by the United Kingdom against the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union
   (Case C-217/04)
   (2004/C 201/15)
   An action against the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union was brought before the Court of Justice of the European Communities on 24 May 2004 by the United Kingdom, represented by Mark Bethell, acting as agent; assisted by Lord Goldsmith QC, Her Majesty's Attorney General; Nicholas Paines QC and Tim Ward, with an address for service in Luxembourg.
   The Applicant claims that the Court should:
   
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               declare that Regulation (EC) No 460/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 March 2004 establishing the European Network and Information Agency (1) is invalid;
            
         
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               order the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union to pay the United Kingdom's costs.
            
         Pleas in law and main arguments:
   The contested Regulation (Regulation (EC) No 460/2004, the ‘ENISA Regulation’) sets up a European Network and Information Security Agency (‘the Agency’) whose function is to provide guidance, advice and assistance to the Commission, the Member States and the business community on issues relating to network and information security within the scope of the ENISA Regulation. The United Kingdom supports the establishment of the Agency, but submits that article 95 EC does not provide a proper legal basis for doing so. The ENISA Regulation is concerned entirely with the creation of the Agency as a Community body; it prescribes the Agency's objectives and tasks and makes provision for its management and organisation and work programme; in addition it makes provision as to the Agency's budget, legal status, privileges and immunities and working languages. The provisions of the ENISA Regulation take effect entirely at the level of the institutional law of the Community.
   The United Kingdom submits that the legislative power conferred by article 95 EC is a power to harmonise national laws; it is not a power to set up Community bodies or to confer tasks upon such bodies. Such matters lie outside the scope of national law, and Community legislation which sets up such a body, or confers tasks upon it, cannot harmonise national law within the meaning of article 95.
   None of the provisions of the ENISA Regulation approximate, even indirectly, any provision of national law. On the contrary, the Agency is expressly precluded from interfering with the competencies of national bodies and the objectives and tasks of the Agency are expressed in article 1(3) to be without prejudice to the competence of Member States.
   The provisions of the ENISA Regulation therefore fall outside the power of harmonisation conferred on the Parliament and Council by article 95 and the only appropriate legal basis for such a measure could be article 308 EC.
   
      (1)  OJ L 077, 13.03.2004, p. 1.