The General Court of the European Union has ruled inadmissible the action brought by Romanian prosecutors against the European Commission’s decision (2023/1786) of September 2023 which terminated the cooperation and verification mechanism (CVM) (see EUROPE 13251/15), in an order handed down on Monday 3 February (case T-1126/23).
In Romania, a professional association of Romanian prosecutors is challenging the European Commission’s decision to terminate the CVM mechanism, which was designed to monitor the reforms undertaken by Romania to address certain shortcomings in the Rule of law and the judicial system identified before the Eastern European country joined the European Union in January 2007 (see EUROPE 9335/2).
In its order, the General Court of the EU dismissed the action for annulment as inadmissible, on the ground that the applicant association did not have standing to bring proceedings either in its own name or on behalf of the prosecutors whose interests it defends.
According to the General Court, the decision (2006/928) establishing the CVM mechanism, which was repealed by the contested decision, did not produce any legal effects on the situation of the public prosecutors who were members of the applicant association, since its effects were confined to relations between the EU and Romania, without individuals being affected, either directly or indirectly.
The fact that the Court of Justice of the EU recognised in 2021 the direct effect of the so-called benchmarks (C-83/19, C-127/19, C-195/19, C-291/19, C-355/19 and C-397/19 - see EUROPE 12721/30), included in the annex to the decision establishing the CVM mechanism to complete Romania’s accession to the EU, cannot imply, per se, that those benchmarks necessarily entail corresponding rights for prosecutors, on which they could rely before the national courts. The General Court observed that the Court of Justice had approached the direct effect of the benchmarks from the perspective that national courts should disapply any national legislation or case-law which is contrary to EU law. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)