Court of Justice (Grand Chamber) 11 June 2014, C‑377/12 (European Commission v Council of the European Union.)

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The European Commission sought annulment of Council Decision 2012/272/EU on the signing of the EU–Philippines Framework Agreement on Partnership and Cooperation, challenging the Council's addition of legal bases relating to readmission of third-country nationals (Article 79(3) TFEU), transport (Articles 91 and 100 TFEU), and the environment (Article 191(4) TFEU) to the Commission's proposed bases of Articles 207 and 209 TFEU. The decisive legal issue was whether the Framework Agreement's provisions on those three matters imposed obligations so extensive as to constitute objectives distinct from development cooperation, thereby requiring additional legal bases beyond Article 209 TFEU. The Grand Chamber held that those provisions either contained only general declarations of intent without concrete implementation mechanisms or, in the case of readmission, did not prescribe in concrete terms the manner of implementation, and therefore did not exceed the broad scope of development cooperation policy under Article 209 TFEU, annulling the contested decision to the extent of the impugned additional legal bases.AI