That Was The Week That Was 10-14 May 2021
Making Sense of Stuff
It is always good to make sense of what is going on. That sometimes we don’t fully understand but push on anyway is, probably, to our credit, but making sense of things is surely a good aim in life. So the decision of the European Court of Justice this week, in case T-798/19 is one for the ages. Mind you, the first thing you have to do is make sense of the decision. It is currently only available in Bulgarian, Danish, Dutch, German, French, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Slovakian and Slovenian which adds to the mystery. Why these languages? It is hard to make sense of that. Either this is the quarter final line up at the Euros, or it is another chapter in my upcoming novel about an Existential Private Detective, John-Paul Sartre, Nietzsche on my Collar.
Back to the decision: if making sense of life is generally a good thing the ECJ raised the bar for one particular group – Commission staff. From now on, their honours determined, decisions of the Commission must make sense. That, you will appreciate is a new standard, even a gold standard, but if taken up and used not as a burden but as a guiding light, it could change Europe for ever.
A group of citizens, possibly from Bulgaria, Denmark, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, attempted to lodge a European Citizens’ Initiative – a process where the disgruntled get to gather together and complain – and they lodged the various forms. But, the Commission rejected it, on the grounds that there was no legal basis for its submission. I paraphrase significantly.
The court annulled this rejection on the grounds that the decision to reject the submission did not contain enough information to make it possible to know the reason for the refusal to entertain it in the first place. To simply say that the ECI fell outside the framework of the Treaty for the Functioning of Europe (as near as one gets to a constitution) does not explain the Commission’s reasoning. Nor did the Commission show that it had considered the context. Finally, those reasons have to be comprehensible. Not only in Brussels, but in capital cities around the world, bureaucrats are trembling. You can hear Sir Humphrey fulminating from here. ‘To make sense? To make sense? What if this catches on?’
As the email attaching the press release about the decision so succinctly said, The General Court, finding an inadequate statement of reasons, annuls a Commission decision refusing to register a proposed citizens’ initiative. A citizen presenting such a proposed initiative must be given the opportunity to understand the Commission’s reasoning.
I intend making use of this wise and learned ruling. So, can we now have another word about the slot rule? What about all the state aid? The SES? The list will go on and on…