European Commission v Council of the European Union.
Date: 2014-06-11
34. According to settled case-law, the choice of the legal basis for a European Union measure, including the measure adopted for the purpose of concluding an international agreement, must rest on objective factors amenable to judicial review, which include the aim and content of that measure. If examination of a European Union measure reveals that it pursues a twofold purpose or that it has a twofold component and if one of those is identifiable as the main or predominant purpose or component, whereas the other is merely incidental, the measure must be founded on a single legal basis, namely, that required by the main or predominant purpose or component. By way of exception, if it is established that the measure pursues several objectives which are inseparably linked without one being secondary and indirect in relation to the other, the measure must be founded on the various corresponding legal bases. However, no dual legal basis is possible where the procedures required by each legal basis are incompatible with each other (see, inter alia, Case C‑130/10 Parliament  v Council EU:C:2012:472, paragraphs 42 to 45 and the case-law cited).
38. For the purpose of establishing whether certain provisions of a cooperation agreement concluded between the European Community and a third State did indeed fall within development cooperation policy, the Court found in paragraphs 37 and 38 of Portugal  v Council EU:C:1996:461, a judgment relied upon by the Commission, that, in order to qualify as a development cooperation agreement, an agreement must pursue the objectives of that policy, that those are broad objectives in the sense that it must be possible for the measures required for their pursuit to concern a variety of specific matters, and that that is so in particular in the case of an agreement establishing the framework of such cooperation. It added that to require a development cooperation agreement to be based on another provision as well as on the provision relating to that policy whenever the agreement touches on a specific matter would in practice amount to rendering devoid of substance the competence and procedure prescribed in the latter provision.
42. In that regard, it must however be pointed out, in the first place, that, far from casting doubt on the findings made by the Court in Portugal  v Council EU:C:1996:461 and recalled in paragraph 38 of the present judgment, that evolution corresponds on the contrary to an increase in the objectives of development cooperation and in the matters concerned by it, reflecting the European Union vision for development which is set out in the European Consensus. As the Advocate General notes in points 40 and 41 of his Opinion and as is apparent in particular from paragraphs 5 and 7 of the European Consensus, the main objective of development cooperation is the eradication of poverty in the context of sustainable development, including pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals. The concept of sustainable development includes in particular environmental aspects. As the eradication of poverty has many aspects, achievement of those aims requires, according to paragraph 12 of the European Consensus, the implementation of many development activities as referred to in that paragraph.
44. However, even if a measure contributes to the economic and social development of developing countries, it does not fall within development cooperation policy if it has as its main purpose the implementation of another policy (see, to this effect, Case C‑91/05 Commission  v Council  EU:C:2008:288, paragraph 72).
56. As regards, in the second place, the extent of the obligations set out in those provisions, it is clear that Article 34 relating to the environment and natural resources and Article 38 relating to transport are limited to declarations of the contracting parties on the aims that their cooperation must pursue and the subjects to which that cooperation will have to relate, and do not determine in concrete terms the manner in which the cooperation will be implemented.