European Parliament v European Commission.
Date: 2016-03-17
17


In reviewing the legality of acts under Article 263 TFEU, the Court of Justice and the General Court of the European Union have jurisdiction in actions brought on grounds of lack of competence, infringement of an essential procedural requirement, infringement of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union or of any rule of law relating to its application, or of misuse of powers (judgments in Frucona Košice v Commission, C‑73/11 P, EU:C:2013:32, paragraph 89, and in Portugal v Commission, C‑246/11 P, EU:C:2013:118, paragraph 85).
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In that regard, it is necessary, in the first place, to observe that, according to the case-law of the Court, it is clear from Article 290(1) TFEU that a legislative act may delegate to the Commission the power to adopt non-legislative acts of general scope which 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 such a 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 (judgments in Commission v Parliament and Council, C‑427/12, EU:C:2014:170, paragraph 38, and in Commission v Parliament and Council, C‑88/14, EU:C:2015:499, paragraph 29).
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That interpretation is supported, first, by the origins of Article 290 TFEU, which may provide information relevant to the interpretation of a provision of the FEU Treaty (see, to that effect, judgment in Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Others v Parliament and Council, C‑583/11 P, EU:C:2013:625, paragraph 50) and, secondly, as the European Parliament noted, by the explanations provided by the Commission in its guidelines on delegated acts, which, while they cannot bind the Court, may constitute a useful source of guidance (see, by analogy, judgments in Italy v Commission, C‑310/99, EU:C:2002:143, paragraph 52, and in T-Mobile Czech Republic and Vodafone Czech Republic, C‑508/14, EU:C:2015:657, paragraph 42).
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Secondly, it must be recalled that the possibility of delegating powers provided for in Article 290 TFEU aims to enable the legislature to focus on the essential elements of a piece of legislation and on the non-essential elements in respect of which it deems it appropriate to legislate, while entrusting the Commission with the task of ‘supplementing’ certain non-essential elements of the legislative act adopted or ‘amending’ such elements in the context of a delegation conferred on it.
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The Court has held in this regard that, on grounds of legal certainty, the effects of such an act may be maintained, in particular where the immediate effects of its annulment would give rise to serious negative consequences for the persons concerned and where the lawfulness of the act in question is contested, not because of its aim or content, but on grounds of lack of competence or infringement of an essential procedural requirement (judgment in Parliament and Commission v Council, C‑103/12 and C‑165/12, EU:C:2014:2400, paragraph 90 and the case-law cited).