CELEX: C1999/333/73
Language: en
Date: 1999-11-20 00:00:00
Title: Case T-204/99: Action brought on 23 September 1999 by Olli Mattila against the Council of the European Union and the Commission of the European Communities

C 333/32              EN                      Official Journal of the European Communities                                    20.11.1999
So far as concerns specifically the report for 1995-1997, the            — breach of the principle of non-discrimination between
applicant is aware of the fact that the abovementioned                       officials, inasmuch as the appointing authority refuses to
implementing provisions provide that it is not mandatory to                  allow any travelling time linked to leave for trade union
draw up such a report where the official reaches retirement                  purposes, whereas officials who are granted special leave
age before expiry of the time-limit for the report to be                     other than leave for trade union purposes may, depending
communicated. He claims, however, that there are serious                     on the need therefor, be allowed travelling time by special
doubts as to their compatibility with the Staff Regulations on               decision;
which they are based.
                                                                         — breach of the principle of the protection of legitimate
                                                                             expectations, inasmuch as the appointing authority is
                                                                             required in any event to respect the legitimate expectations
                                                                             of applicants in its decision-making practices prior to the
                                                                             grant of travelling time linked to leave for trade union
                                                                             purposes, and should have adopted the appropriate tem-
                                                                             porary measures as regards the Congress in question,
Action brought on 13 September 1999 by Patrizia De                           assuming that it was entitled to refuse to grant the
Palma, Jacqueline Escale, Claudine Hamptaux and Harry                        travelling time in issue.
Wood against the Commission of the European Com-
                            munities
                                                                         The applicants also maintain that the obligation to provide a
                                                                         statement of the reasons for those acts has been disregarded in
                        (Case T-203/99)                                  the present case.
                        (1999/C 333/72)
                   (Language of the case: French)
An action against the Commission of European Communities
was brought before the Court of First Instance of the European           Action brought on 23 September 1999 by Olli Mattila
Communities on 13 September 1999 by Patrizia De Palma,                   against the Council of the European Union and the
Jacqueline Escale, Claudine Hamptaux and Harry Wood,                              Commission of the European Communities
residing in Brussels, represented by Carlos Mourato, of the
Brussels Bar, with an address for service at the office of                                       (Case T-204/99)
Fiduciaire Myson SARL, 30 Rue de Cessange.
                                                                                                 (1999/C 333/73)
The applicants claim that the Court should:
— annul the express decisions made on 11 June 1999                                          (Language of the case: English)
    rejecting the complaints lodged by the applicants with the
    appointing authority on 8, 14, 18 and 10 December 1998
    respectively, by which they contested the appointing                 An action against the Council of the European Union and the
    authority’s decision of 23 September 1998 not to accede              Commission of the European Communities was brought
    to the request for leave for trade union purposes or                 before the Court of First Instance of the European Communities
    travelling time in order to enable the applicants to attend          on 23 September 1999 by Olli Mattila, represented by Pro-
    the 13th UIECS Congress;                                             fessor Zacharias Sundström, with an address for service in
                                                                         Luxembourg at the Chambers of Arendt & Medernach, 28-10
— order the defendant to pay the costs.                                  rue Mathias Hardt.
                                                                         The applicant claims that the Court should:
Pleas in law and main arguments
                                                                         — annul the letters of 14 July 1999 and 5 July 1999, in so
By their action, the applicants contest the refusal by the                   far as they contain or communicate any decision or act of
appointing authority to accede to the request for leave for                  the Council and the Commission in response to the
trade union purposes or travelling time for the dates of 25                  applicant’s request under Article 230;
and 28 September 1998 in order to enable trade union
representatives of the UIECS, including the applicants, to               — to order, in any event, the Council and the Commission
attend the 13th Congress of that trade union, held in Italy.                 jointly to pay the costs incurred by the applicant in the
                                                                             present proceedings.
In support of their claims, the applicants plead:
— infringement of Article 24a and the second paragraph of                Pleas in law and main arguments
    Article 57 of the Staff Regulations, Articles 6 and 7 of
    Annex V to the Staff Regulations and Article 16 of the               The applicant in the present case challenges the refusal of the
    framework agreement of 20 September 1974 concerning                  defendant institutions to grant it access to specific documents
    relations between the Commission and trade unions and                relating to EU cooperation with Russia and other States of the
    staff associations;                                                  former Soviet Union.
 ---pagebreak--- 20.11.1999              EN                     Official Journal of the European Communities                                          C 333/33
The applicant points out that, whereas the Council invoked                and Dirk Ehle, Rechtsanwälte, of Messrs Ehle & Schiller,
systematically, for each document, Article 4(1) of its Decision           Cologne, with an address for service in Luxembourg at the
93/731/EC (‘the Decision’), the Commission referred to the                Chambers of Marc Lucius, 6 Rue Michel Welter.
Decision and indicated that the documents requested could
undermine the position of the EU in current and future                    The applicant claims that the Court should:
negotiations with Russia and could not, therefore, be made
available to the applicant.                                               1. annul the Commission’s decision of 5 February 1999
                                                                               (REM: 14/98);
In support of its claims, the applicant submits that:                     2. order the Commission to pay the costs.
— it is necessary to analyse and consider the relevance and
     weight of the denials in question in the light of the overall        Pleas in law and main arguments
     transparency aimed at by the Decision;
                                                                          The applicant’s pleas in law and main arguments are similar to
— the exception relating to international relations must                  those in Cases T-186/97, T-187/97, T-190/97, T-191/97,
     be interpreted restrictively and applied carefully on a              T-192/97, T-210/97, T-211/97, T-216/97, T-217/97,
     case-by-case basis;                                                  T-218/97 (1), T-279/97 (2), T-280/97 (2), T-293/97 (3) and
                                                                          T-147/99 (4).
— in the present case the Council and the Commission are
     using what they consider to be part of their discretionary           (1) See, as regards all these cases, OJ C 318 of 18.10.1997, pp. 17 to
     authority to deny all rights to access to the requested                  25.
     documentation;                                                       (2) OJ C 387 of 20.12.1997, p. 24.
                                                                          (3) OJ C 94 of 28.3.1998, p. 24.
                                                                          (4) OJ C 246 of 28.8.1999, p. 41.
— agendas of meetings held in 1998, possibly without critical
     annotations, are mere lists of tractanda which are usually
     made available to the press in connection with meetings,
     so that it is hardly conceivable that the release of such
     agendas, after the lapse of a year, could constitute a
     dangerous or prejudicial measure liable to have an adverse
     effect on the international relations of the European Union;         Action brought on 15 September 1999 by Métropole
                                                                          Télévision (M6) against the Commission of the European
— it is a fundamental principle of Community law that                                                  Communities
     citizens of the European Union should be granted the
     widest and fullest possible access to documents of the                                          (Case T-206/99)
     institutions of the European Union;
                                                                                                     (1999/C 333/75)
— in the present case, not only is the public interest at stake,
     but also the private interest of the applicant who needs to
                                                                                               (Language of the case: French)
     be able to defend before the Finnish courts his case that
     the contents of the requested documents do not have the
     highly confidential nature that is currently alleged by the          An action against the Commission of the European Communi-
     Council and the Commission.                                          ties was brought before the Court of First Instance on
                                                                          15 September 1999 by Métropole Télévision (M6), having its
                                                                          registered office in Neuilly-sur-Seine (France), represented by
                                                                          Didier Théophile, of the Paris Bar, with an address for service
                                                                          in Luxembourg at the Chambers of Aloyse May, 31 Grand-Rue.
                                                                          The applicant claims that the Court of First Instance should:
                                                                          — annul the Commission’s decision of 29 June 1999;
Action brought on 15 September 1999 by HYPER S.r.l.                       — order the Commission to pay all the costs.
  against the Commission of the European Communities
                                                                          Pleas in law and main arguments
                          (Case T-205/99)
                                                                          The applicant contests the Commission’s decision of 29 June
                          (1999/C 333/74)                                 1999 rejecting the complaint submitted by it against the
                                                                          European Broadcasting Union (EBU), concerning an alleged
                                                                          infringement by the EBU of Article 81(1) EC by virtue of its
                   (Language of the Case: German)                         refusal to accept the applicant’s application for membership
                                                                          of that organisation. That decision forms part of the aftermath
                                                                          to the judgment of the Court of First Instance of 11 July 1996
An action against the Commission of the European Communi-                 in Joined Cases T-528/93, T-542/93, T-543/93 and T-546/93
ties was brought before the Court of First Instance of the                Métropole Télévision and Others v Commission [1996] ECR
European Communities on 15 September 1999 by HYPER                        II-649, in which the Court of First Instance annulled a decision
S.r.l., of Limena (Italien Republic), represented by Dietrich Ehle        exempting the EBU’s internal provisions and other regulations