European Commission v European Parliament and Council of the European Union.
Date: 2015-07-16
13. As is apparent from Article 127(1) of the Court’s Rules of Procedure, no new plea in law may be introduced in the course of proceedings unless it is based on matters of law or of fact which come to light in the course of the procedure. However, an argument which may be regarded as amplifying a plea made previously, whether directly or by implication, in the original application must be considered admissible (see, to that effect, judgments in Italy  v Commission , C‑66/02, EU:C:2005:768, paragraphs 85 and 86, and Naipes Heraclio Fournier  v OHIM , C‑311/05 P, EU:C:2007:572, paragraphs 58 and 59).
28. According to the case-law, the EU legislature has discretion when it decides to confer on the Commission a delegated power pursuant to Article 290(1) TFEU or an implementing power pursuant to Article 291(2) TFEU (judgment in Commission  v Parliament and Council , C‑427/12, EU:C:2014:170, paragraph 40). However, that discretion must be exercised in compliance with the conditions laid down in Articles 290 TFEU and 291 TFEU.
29. With respect to the conferral of a delegated power, Article 290(1) TFEU states that a legislative act may delegate to the Commission the power to adopt non-legislative acts of general application to supplement or amend certain non-essential elements of the legislative act. In accordance with the second subparagraph of that provision, the objectives, content, scope and duration of the delegation of power must be explicitly defined in the legislative act granting the delegation. That requirement implies that the purpose of granting a delegated power is to achieve the adoption of rules coming within the regulatory framework as defined by the basic legislative act (judgment in Commission  v Parliament and Council , C‑427/12, EU:C:2014:170, paragraph 38).
30. With respect to the conferral of an implementing power, Article 291(2) TFEU states that legally binding Union acts are to confer such power on the Commission or, in duly justified specific cases and the cases provided for in Articles 24 TEU and 26 TEU, on the Council, where uniform conditions for implementing those acts are needed. In the exercise of the implementing power conferred on it, the institution concerned must provide further detail in relation to the content of a legislative act, in order to ensure that it is implemented under uniform conditions in all the Member States (see judgment in Commission  v Parliament and Council , C‑427/12, EU:C:2014:170, paragraph 39).
31. It also follows from the Court’s case-law that, in exercising an implementing power, the Commission may neither amend nor supplement the legislative act, even as to its non-essential elements (judgment in Parliament  v Commission , C‑65/13, EU:C:2014:2289, paragraph 45).
34. In those circumstances, it must be examined whether the EU legislature remained within the bounds of its discretion, referred to in paragraph 28 above, when conferring on the Commission in Article 1(4)(f) of that regulation the power to ‘amend’, within the meaning of Article 290(1) TFEU, the normative content of that regulation (see, to that effect, judgment in Commission  v Parliament and Council , C‑427/12, EU:C:2014:170, paragraphs 40 and 52).