Patrick Grégor Puppinck and Others v European Commission.
Date: 2019-12-19
53


Article 11(4) TEU, introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon, provides that Union citizens may, subject to certain conditions, take the initiative of inviting the Commission, within the framework of its powers, to submit any appropriate proposal on matters where those citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties (judgment of 12 September 2017, Anagnostakis v Commission, C‑589/15 P, EU:C:2017:663, paragraph 23).
54


The right to undertake an ECI constitutes, as does, in particular, the right to petition the Parliament, an instrument concerning the right of citizens to participate in the democratic life of the Union, provided for in Article 10(3) TEU, in that it allows them to apply directly to the Commission in order to submit to it a request inviting it to submit a proposal for a legal act of the Union, for the purposes of the application of the Treaties (judgment of 12 September 2017, Anagnostakis v Commission, C‑589/15 P, EU:C:2017:663, paragraph 24).
59


On the contrary, as the Court stated in that judgment, both Article 17(2) TEU and Article 289 TFEU confer on the Commission the power of legislative initiative, which means that it is for the Commission to decide whether or not to submit a proposal for a legislative act, except in the situation where it has an obligation under EU law to submit such a proposal. By virtue of that power, if a proposal for a legislative act is submitted, it is also for the Commission, which, in accordance with Article 17(1) TEU, is to promote the general interest of the European Union and take appropriate initiatives to that end, to determine the subject matter, objective and content of that proposal (judgment of 14 April 2015, Council v Commission, C‑409/13, EU:C:2015:217, paragraph 70).
60


That power of legislative initiative conferred on the Commission is one of the expressions of the principle of institutional balance, characteristic of the institutional structure of the European Union, which means that each of the institutions must exercise its powers with due regard for the powers of the other institutions (see, to that effect, judgment of 14 April 2015, Council v Commission, C‑409/13, EU:C:2015:217, paragraph 64 and the case-law cited).
75


The preamble of an EU act may explain the content of the provisions of that act (see, to that effect, judgment of 10 January 2006, IATA and ELFAA, C‑344/04, EU:C:2006:10, paragraph 76). As stated by the Advocate General in point 93 of his Opinion, the recitals of an EU act constitute important elements for the purposes of interpretation, which may clarify the intentions of the author of that act.
76


However, the preamble to an EU act has no binding legal force and cannot be relied on as a ground either for derogating from the actual provisions of the act in question or for interpreting those provisions in a manner that is clearly contrary to their wording (see, to that effect, judgment of 24 November 2005, Deutsches Milch-Kontor, C‑136/04, EU:C:2005:716, paragraph 32 and the case-law cited).
90


It must, moreover, be made clear in that regard that while it is true, as pointed out by the Commission, that the Court held, in the judgment of 9 December 2014, Schönberger v Parliament (C‑261/13 P, EU:C:2014:2423, paragraph 24), that a decision of the Parliament concerning the action to be taken in response to a petition meeting the conditions laid down in Article 227 TFEU is not amenable to review by the EU Courts, a communication from the Commission adopted under Article 10(1)(c) of Regulation No 211/2011 is, however, to be distinguished from such a decision in various respects.
91


Unlike such a petition, an ECI that is registered on the basis of Article 4(2) of Regulation No 211/2011 is subject, in accordance with that regulation, to strict conditions and to specific procedural safeguards. Further, while a decision of the Parliament of the kind mentioned in the preceding paragraph falls within a discretion ‘of a political nature’ (judgment of 9 December 2014, Schönberger v Parliament, C‑261/13 P, EU:C:2014:2423, paragraph 24), it is clear from Article 10(1)(c) of that regulation that the Commission is obliged to set out, in a communication, its conclusions, both legal and political, on the ECI concerned, the action it intends to take, if any, and its reasons for taking or not taking that action.
94


In that regard, it must, first, be recalled that the obligation to state reasons must apply, as a general rule, to all EU acts that produce legal effects (see, to that effect, judgment of 25 October 2017, Commission v Council(WRC‑15), C‑687/15, EU:C:2017:803, paragraph 52). The statement of reasons must disclose, clearly and unequivocally, the reasoning of the institution that is the author of the measure, in such a way as to enable, on the one hand, interested parties to ascertain the reasons for the measure in order to defend their rights, and, on the other hand, the EU Courts to exercise their power to review the legality of that decision (see, to that effect, judgment of 12 September 2017, Anagnostakis v Commission, C‑589/15 P, EU:C:2017:663, paragraph 28).
95


Second, where the EU institutions enjoy, as the Commission does in this case, a broad discretion and, in particular, when they are required to make choices that are, in particular, of a political nature and to undertake complex assessments, judicial review of the assessments that underpin the exercise of that discretion must consist in determining the absence of manifest errors (see, to that effect, judgment of 6 September 2017, Slovakia and Hungary v Council, C‑643/15 and C‑647/15, EU:C:2017:631, paragraphs 123 and 124 and the case-law cited).
107


As is clear from paragraph 40 of that judgment, the Court stated that it is not the purpose of Directive 98/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 1998 on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions (OJ 1998 L 213, p. 13), the interpretation of which was at issue in that judgment, to regulate the use of human embryos in the context of scientific research, the purpose of that directive being limited to the patentability of biotechnological inventions (see also, to that effect, judgment of 18 December 2014, International Stem Cell, C‑364/13, EU:C:2014:2451, paragraph 22). The judgment of 18 October 2011, Brüstle (C‑34/10, EU:C:2011:669), moreover, contains no finding by the Court that scientific research making use of human embryos could under no circumstances be funded by the Union.