European Parliament v Council of the European Union.
Date: 2012-09-06
44. According to settled case-law, the choice of the legal basis for a European Union measure must be based on objective factors amenable to judicial review, which include the aim and content of that measure and not on the legal basis used for the adoption of other European Union measures which might, in certain cases, display similar characteristics. In addition, where the Treaty contains a more specific provision that is capable of constituting the legal basis for the measure in question, the measure must be founded on that provision ( Parliament v Council , paragraph 34 and the case-law cited).
45. If examination of a measure reveals that it pursues two aims or that it has two components and if one of those aims or components is identifiable as the main one, whereas the other is merely incidental, the measure must be founded on a single legal basis, namely that required by the main or predominant aim or component ( Parliament v Council , paragraph 35 and the case-law cited).
46. With regard to a measure that simultaneously pursues a number of objectives, or that has several components, which are inseparably linked without one being incidental to the other, the Court has held that, where various provisions of the Treaty are therefore applicable, such a measure will have to be founded, exceptionally, on the various corresponding legal bases ( Parliament v Council , paragraph 36 and the case-law cited).
47. None the less, the Court has previously held that recourse to a dual legal basis is not possible where the procedures laid down for each legal basis are incompatible with each other ( Parliament v Council , paragraph 37 and the case-law cited).
63. As the Court has already held, that provision gives the Commission general competence to collect any information needed for the achievement of the tasks which have been entrusted to it by the TFEU, so that the Council is not obliged to base acts relating to that activity on the various Treaty provisions which confer specific tasks on the Commission (see, to that effect, Germany v Council , paragraphs 19 and 20).
65. Article 194 TFEU, which is in Part Three of the TFEU, entitled ‘Union policies and internal actions’, and which alone constitutes Title XXI, headed ‘Energy’, provides in paragraph 1, that, in the context of the establishment and functioning of the internal market and with regard for the need to preserve and improve the environment, European Union policy on energy is to aim, in a spirit of solidarity between Member States, to ensure the functioning of the energy market, ensure security of energy supply in the European Union, promote energy efficiency and energy saving and the development of new and renewable forms of energy and promote the interconnection of energy networks. Under the first subparagraph of Article 194(2) TFEU ‘[w]ithout prejudice to the application of other provisions of the Treaties’, the Parliament and the Council are to establish the measures necessary to achieve those objectives by acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure provided for in Article 294 TFEU, in the context of which the Parliament participates fully in the procedure.
68. It follows that, to determine whether the legal basis for a European Union act having the aim, as in the present case, of the collection of information in the energy sector is Article 337 TFEU or Article 194(2) TFEU, it must be examined whether that act, as regards its aim and content, may be considered necessary to achieve the objectives specifically assigned to the European Union policy on energy by Article 194(1) TFEU. If so, since the collection of information may be treated in the same way as a component of that policy, the European Union act which adopts it must be based on Article 194(2) TFEU. A European Union act cannot therefore come under Article 337 TFEU solely because it adopts a system of collection of information (see, by analogy, Commission v Council , paragraph 22).
73. It follows that the collection of information introduced by the contested regulation can only be justified by an objective consistent with achieving some of the specific tasks entrusted to the European Union by Article 194(1) TFEU, concerning the energy policy (see, by analogy, Case C-533/03 Commission v Council  [2006] ECR I-1025, paragraph 52).
91. It must be acknowledged that the annulment of the contested regulation without maintaining its effects would be likely to have negative consequences on the achievement of the European Union policy on energy, since that regulation, in so far as it ensures the collection of information necessary for the achievement of the objectives of that policy, constitutes a necessary prerequisite to the adoption by the European Union institutions of all appropriate measures for that purpose. However, although the Parliament seeks the annulment of that regulation on the ground that an incorrect legal basis was used for it, it does not dispute the aim or content thereof.