- Representatives of the Council of the EU and the European Parliament have reached a provisional agreement on a reform of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the EU.
- The reform aims to improve the functioning and efficiency of the Court of Justice.
- The Court of Justice requested an amendment to the Protocol No 3 on its Statute due to the increasing number of requests for preliminary rulings and appeals.
- Under the provisional agreement, certain areas such as the common VAT system will be transferred from the Court of Justice to the General Court.
- This transfer is expected to alleviate the workload of the Court of Justice, as these areas represent 20% of all requests.
- The Court of Justice will continue to handle the most sensitive and complex cases regarding the interpretation of primary law.
- The reform proposal also includes provisions for extending the mechanism for determining whether an appeal is allowed to proceed.
- There will be broader public access to certain documents held by the Court of Justice, such as written observations by the parties in the case.
- The European Parliament, the Council, and the European Central Bank will now always be entitled to submit statements or written observations to the Court in case of a new request for preliminary ruling.
- The updated statute will enter into force once formally approved by the European Parliament and the Member States, with the reassignment of preliminary VAT rulings to the General Court potentially taking effect in October.
Source: etaf.tax
Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.
