European Parliament v Council of the European Union.
Date: 1994-06-28
14 First of all, it should be pointed out that, as the Court has consistently held (see, most recently, Case C-316/91 Parliament v Council [1994] ECR I-0000, paragraph 12), an action for annulment brought by the Parliament against an act of the Council or the Commission is admissible provided that the action seeks only to safeguard its prerogatives and that it is founded only on submissions alleging their infringement.
17 The Court has consistently held that, in the context of the organization of the powers of the Community, the choice of the legal basis for a measure must be based on objective factors which are amenable to judicial review. Those factors include in particular the aim and content of the measure (see, most recently, Case C-155/91 Commission v Council [1993] ECR I-939, paragraph 7).
18 As regards the aim, it is apparent in particular from the sixth and ninth recitals in the preamble to the Regulation that the system set up for the supervision and control of shipments of waste between Member States reflects the need to preserve, protect and improve the quality of the environment and is designed to enable the competent authorities to take all necessary measures for the protection of human health and the environment.
20 As the Court held in Case C-155/91 Commission v Council, cited above, paragraphs 10, 14 and 15, the objective of Directive 91/156, according to its aim and content, is to ensure the management of waste, whether of industrial or domestic origin, in accordance with environmental protection requirements, and cannot be regarded as seeking to implement the free movement of such waste within the Community, even though it allows Member States to prevent movements of waste destined for recovery or disposal which do not conform with their management plans.
21 As regards the content of the Regulation, it should be noted that it sets out the conditions governing shipments of waste between Member States and the procedures to be followed for their authorization.
22 Those conditions and procedures have all been adopted with a view to ensuring the protection of the environment, taking account of objectives falling within the scope of environmental policy such as the principles of proximity, priority for recovery and self-sufficiency at Community and national levels. In particular, they enable the Member States, for the purposes of implementing those principles, to take measures to prohibit generally or partially or to object systematically to and oppose shipments of waste which are not in conformity with Directive 75/442, cited above, as amended by Directive 91/156.
23 In those circumstances, it must be concluded that the Regulation falls within the framework of the environmental policy pursued by the Community and that it cannot be regarded, any more than Directive 91/156, as seeking to implement the free movement of waste within the Community. The Council could therefore validly exclude Article 100a of the Treaty from the legal basis of the Regulation and base it on Article 130s of the Treaty.
24 That conclusion is not invalidated by the fact that, by harmonizing the conditions in which movements of waste take place, the Regulation affects such movements and thus has a bearing on the functioning of the internal market.
25 As the Court has consistently held (see in particular Case C-155/91 Commission v Council, cited above, paragraph 19), the mere fact that the establishment or functioning of the internal market is involved is not enough to render Article 100a of the Treaty applicable and recourse to that article is not justified where the act to be adopted has only the ancillary effect of harmonizing market conditions within the Community.
26 That is the position in the present case. As the Advocate General has pointed out in paragraphs 44 and 45 of his Opinion, the aim of the Regulation is not to define those characteristics of waste which will enable it to circulate freely within the internal market, but to provide a harmonized set of procedures whereby movements of waste can be limited in order to secure protection of the environment.
28 The fact that the Regulation replaces another act which was based on Article 100 of the Treaty, relating to the approximation of the laws of the Member States having a direct bearing on the establishment or functioning of the common market, does not necessarily mean that the Regulation must have recourse to Article 100 or Article 100a, which was introduced into the Treaty by the Single European Act and which provides for the adoption of measures for the approximation of the laws of the Member States which have as their object the establishment and functioning of the internal market (see, as regards Article 235 of the Treaty, Case 165/87 Commission v Council [1988] ECR 5545, paragraph 17). The legal basis for an act must be determined having regard to its own aim and content.