European Commission v Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Date: 2014-10-22
28. In this connection, it should be noted that, in considering an action brought under Article 258 TFEU, regard must be had only to the form of order sought in the original application (see, inter alia, judgment in Commission  v Belgium , C‑132/09, EU:C:2010:562, paragraph 35 and the case-law cited).
29. It should also be borne in mind that the form of order sought must be set out unambiguously so that the Court does not rule ultra petita  or indeed fail to rule on a complaint (see, inter alia, judgment in Commission  v Spain , C‑67/12, EU:C:2014:5, paragraph 41 and the case-law cited).
33. In accordance with Article 120(c) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice and the case-law relating to that provision, an application initiating proceedings must state the subject-matter of the proceedings and set out a summary of the pleas in law on which the application is based, and that statement must be sufficiently clear and precise to enable the defendant to prepare his defence and the Court to rule on the application. It follows that the essential points of law and of fact on which an action is based must be indicated coherently and intelligibly in the application itself (see, inter alia, judgment in Commission  v Spain , EU:C:2014:5, paragraph 41 and the case-law cited).
34. The Court has also held that, where an action is brought under Article 258 TFEU, the application must set out the complaints coherently and precisely, so that the Member State and the Court can know exactly the scope of the alleged infringement of EU law, a condition that must be satisfied if the Member State is to be able to present an effective defence and the Court to determine whether there has been a breach of obligations, as alleged (see, inter alia, judgment in Commission  v Spain , EU:C:2014:5, paragraph 42 and the case-law cited).
35. In the present case, the Kingdom of the Netherlands contends, first, that the present action does not meet those conditions inasmuch as it refers to Directives 2002/73 and 2006/54 in a confused manner.
36. In that regard, it must be observed that the pre-litigation stage of the present proceedings for failure to fulfil obligations began in June 2007, when the initial letter of formal notice was sent, and ended on 7 May 2013, when the present action was brought. Over that period of almost six years, Directive 2002/73, referred to in that letter of formal notice, was repealed with effect from 15 August 2009 and replaced, with almost the same legislative content, by Directive 2006/54. From that date, as the documents before the Court show, the pre-litigation procedure was continued with reference to the — substantively identical — provisions of the latter directive.
37. Accordingly, the mere fact that the subject-matter of the present action, as described on the first page of the application, concerns Directive 2002/73, while the form of order sought refers only to Directive 2006/54, is not liable to give rise to uncertainty as to the provisions of EU law in the light of which the merits of that action fall to be assessed. For the same reasons, the Kingdom of the Netherlands cannot claim that it was unable to grasp the scope of the alleged failure to fulfil obligations or that it was unable fully to exercise its rights of defence.