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Cilfit Still Fits
ECJ 6 October 2021, Case C-561/19, Consorzio Italian Management
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 November 2022
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- © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the University of Amsterdam
Footnotes
The author was involved in the preparation of the draft Opinion when serving as a référendaire for AG Bobek; all views expressed herein are, however, personal to the author.
References
1 ECJ 6 October 2021, Case C-561/19, Consorzio Italian Management and Catania Multiservizi SpA v Rete Ferroviaria Italiana SpA, ECLI:EU:C:2021:799 (Consorzio Italian Management).
2 ECJ 6 October 1982, Case 283/81, Cilfit and Lanificio di Gavardo SpA v Ministry of Health, ECLI:EU:C:1982:335 (Cilfit).
3 Directive 2004/17/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 coordinating the procurement procedures of entities operating in the water, energy, transport and postal services sectors (OJ 2004 L 134, p. 1).
4 ECJ 19 April 2018, Case C-152/17, Consorzio Italian Management and Catania Multiservizi SpA v Rete Ferroviaria Italiana SpA, ECLI:EU:C:2018:264.
5 It is sufficient to note that the substantive questions posed by the referring court were held again inadmissible by the Court for their failure to comply with Art. 94 of the Court’s rules of procedure, since the referring court had not explained the relevance for the resolution of the dispute of the provisions of EU law on which an interpretation was sought (Consorzio Italian Management, para. 70).
6 ECJ Opinion of AG Bobek in Case C-561/19, ECLI:EU:C:2021:291.
7 Ibid., points 23-31.
8 Ibid., points 51-52.
9 The criteria were set out in paras. 16-20 of the Court’s judgment in Cilfit. ‘Before it comes to the conclusion that such is the case, the national court or tribunal must be convinced that the matter is equally obvious to the courts of the other Member States and to the Court of Justice… The existence of such a possibility must be assessed on the basis of the characteristic features of Community law and the particular difficulties to which its interpretation gives rise.’ That entails, first, a comparison of the different language versions in order to take into account the fact that EU acts are drafted in several languages; second, the taking into account of the specific terminology used by the EU and the fact that legal concepts do not necessarily have the same meaning in EU law and in the law of the various member states (reflecting the idea of autonomous EU law concepts); third, a comprehensive interpretation of EU law provisions in the light of their context, objectives and the EU’s state of evolution at the date on which the provision in question is to be applied.
10 Opinion, supra n. 6, point 71 ff.
11 ECJ 9 September 2015, Cases C-72/14 and C-197/14, X v Inspecteur van Rijksbelastingdienst and T.A. van Dijk v Staatssecretaris van Financiën, ECLI:EU:C:2015:564, where the Court took the view that interpretive divergences between a lower court and a supreme court in the same member state did not necessarily imply the existence of reasonable interpretive doubt.
12 ECJ 9 September 2015, Case C-160/14, Ferreira da Silva e Brito and Others v Estado português, ECLI:EU:C:2015:565, where the Court appeared stricter, in holding that interpretive divergences across the Union regarding a key EU law concept required referral.
13 Opinion, supra n. 6, point 85.
14 Ibid., points 94-95. Namely to allow the French judiciary to interpret international treaties at a time where only the executive could do so.
15 Ibid., points 91-92, 98 and 180.
16 Ibid., point 105. Such as the existence of a ‘serious difficulty’ in interpreting EU law; or of a ‘question of interpretation of general interest’.
17 Ibid., points 106-107.
18 Ibid., points 108-109.
19 ECJ 4 October 2018, Case C-416/17, Commission v France (Advance Payment), ECLI:EU:C:2018:811 (Commission v France).
20 Opinion, supra n. 6, points 116-121.
21 Ibid., points 132-133 and point 149.
22 Ibid., point 180: ‘In view of the decentralised and diffused nature of the EU judicial system, the best that can ever be achieved is a reasonable uniformity in the interpretation of EU law, with that type of uniformity already being a rather tall order. As to the uniformity in application and outcomes, the answer is rather simple: “no man can lose what he never had”’.
23 Ibid., point 127: ‘A potential (reluctant) tree should not be allowed to overshadow the (compliant) forest’.
24 Ibid., point 134.
25 Ibid., point 145.
26 Ibid., point 147.
27 Ibid., point 152.
28 Ibid., point 157.
29 Ibid., point 157.
30 Ibid., point 178.
31 Ibid., point 135. See also point 168.
32 Consorzio Italian Management, supra n. 1, para. 27.
33 Ibid., para. 28.
34 Ibid., para. 33.
35 Ibid., paras. 40-43 and 45-46.
36 Ibid., para. 44.
37 Ibid., para. 49.
38 Ibid., para. 40 (emphasis added).
39 Ibid., para. 48.
40 Ibid., para. 33.
41 Ibid., para. 51.
42 Ibid., paras. 52-65.
43 Ibid., paras. 53-56.
44 Ibid., para. 58.
45 Ibid., para. 59.
46 Ibid., paras. 61-65.
47 Among the classic works on acte clair, see for instance P. Pescatore, ‘Interpretation of Community Law and the Doctrine of “Acte Clair”’, in M.E. Bathurst et al. (eds), Legal Problems of an Enlarged Community (Stevens and Sons 1972) p. 27; H. Rasmussen, ‘The European Court’s Acte Clair Strategy in CILFIT’, 9 European Law Review (1984) p. 475; M. Broberg, ‘Acte Clair Revisited. Adapting the Acte Clair Criteria to the Demands of the Times’, 45 Common Market Law Review (2008) p. 1383.
48 Sharing that view, G. Martinico and L. Pierdominici, ‘Rivedere CILFIT? Riflessioni giuscompara. tistiche sulle conclusioni dell’avvocato generale Bobek nella causa Consorzio Italian Management’ (Giustizia Insieme 2021).
49 Opinion, supra n. 6, points 2 and 174.
50 See for instance the Polish, Hungarian and Romanian limitations on referrals and the way they have been addressed by the Court of Justice in respectively ECJ 2 March 2021, Case C-824/18, A.B., ECLI:EU:C:2021:153, para. 91; ECJ 23 November 2021, Case C-563/19, I.S., ECLI:EU:C:2021:94, paras. 67-82, ECJ 22 February 2022, Case C-430/21, RS, ECLI:EU:C:2022:99, paras. 65-67.
51 See for instance in Germany Federal Constitutional Court, judgment of the Second Senate of 5 May 2020 – 2 BvR 859/15 (PSPP).
52 Consorzio Italian Management, supra n. 1, para. 38.
53 L. Cecchetti, ‘CILFIT “motionless Titan” has moved, albeit softly and with circumspection: Consorzio Italian Management II’, REALaw.blog, ⟨https://realaw.blog/?p=898⟩, visited 12 October 2022.
54 Opinion, supra n. 6, point 1.
55 N. Fenger and M. Broberg, ‘Finding Light in the Darkness: On The Actual Application of the Acte Clair Doctrine’, 30(1) Yearbook of European Law (2011) p. 180; Research Note No. 19/004 of May 2019 of the Directorate-General for Library, Research and Documentation of the Court of Justice concerning the ‘Application of the Cilfit case-law by national courts or tribunals against whose decisions there is no judicial remedy under national law’, ⟨www.curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-01/ndr-cilfit_synthese_en.pdf⟩, visited 12 October 2022.
56 J. Krommendijk, ‘Cilfit 2.0: will it matter on the ground? Some empirical reflections’, REALaw.blog, ⟨https://realaw.blog/2022/02/04/cilfit-2-0-will-it-matter-on-the-ground-some-empirical-reflections-by-jasper-krommendijk/⟩, visited 12 October 2022.
57 For a somewhat different view whereby Cilfit has been ‘overhauled’ and significantly relaxed through those clarifications, see M. Broberg and N. Fenger, ‘If You Love Somebody Set them Free: on the Court of Justice’s Revision of the Acte Clair Doctrine’, 59(3) Common Market Law Review (2022) p. 711 at p. 714 and 720.
58 For another recent exception, see ECJ 26 April 2022, Case C-368/20, NW v Landespolizeidirektion Steiermark, ECLI:EU:C:2022:298, which might bear witness to an increasing engagement of the Court with (counter-)arguments made by Advocates General.
59 Opinion, supra n. 6, point 156.
60 ECJ 15 September 2005, Case C-495/03, Intermodal Transports BV, ECLI:EU:C:2005:552.
61 Consorzio Italian Management, supra n. 1, para. 40.
62 Ibid., para. 49.
63 Broberg and Fenger, supra n. 57, p. 736.
64 It is unfortunate that the change of words is not reflected everywhere in the judgment, since those parts of the judgment that are taken from previous case law still refer to the ‘correct application of EU law’ (see for instance Consorzio Italian Management, supra n. 1, para. 29).
65 For earlier scholarly proposals to that effect, see for example A. Kornezov, ‘The New Format of the acte clair Coctrine and its Consequences’, 53(5) Common Market Law Review (2016) p. 1317; J. Krommendijk, ‘“Open Sesame!”:Improving Access to the ECJ by Requiring National Courts to Reason Their Refusals to Refer’, 42(1) European Law Review (2017) p. 46.
66 Consorzio Italian Management, supra n. 1, para. 51.
67 ECtHR 30 June 2005, Case 45036/98, Bosphorus v Ireland, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2005:0630JUD004503698.
68 ECtHR 6 December 2012, Case 12323/11, Michaud v France, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2012:1206JUD001232311, paras. 114-115; ECtHR 23 May 2016, Case 77502/07, Avotiņš v Latvia, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2016:0523JUD001750207, para. 106.
69 For instance, the ECtHR rebutted the Bosphorus presumption in Michaud v France (para. 115) because the Conseil d’Etat ‘ruled without the full potential of the relevant international machinery for supervising fundamental rights – in principle equivalent to that of the Convention – having been deployed’.
70 ECtHR 20 September 2011, Cases nos. 3989/07 and 38353/07, Ullens de Schooten and Rezabek v Belgium, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2011:0920JUD000398907.
71 Ibid., para. 57.
72 Ibid., para. 62.
73 The best example to that effect is the specific situation at hand in Consorzio Italian Management itself, since the substantive provisions of EU law bore no connection with the case as the Court held in the remainder of the judgment.
74 Opinion, supra n. 6, point 164.
75 In that judgment, the Court found a violation of Art. 267, third paragraph, TFEU by the French State because the Conseil d’Etat had departed from a previous Court’s judgment regarding the UK (see para. 111). It would appear that that departure might have been a false one within the terminology adopted herein.
76 Opinion, supra n. 6, point 104.
77 See Art. 52(3) Charter.
78 See ECtHR 13 February 2020, Case 25137/16, Sanofi Pasteur c/France, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2020:0213JUD002513716, para. 70 and the case law cited therein.
79 Ibid.
80 Ibid. paras. 73-79. See also ECtHR 13 July 2021, Case 43639/17, Bio Farmland Betriebs v Romania, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2021:0713JUD004363917.
81 ECJ 30 September 2003, Case C-224/01, Köbler, ECLI:EU:C:2003:513, para. 55, where the Court held that non-compliance with the duty to refer was but one factor within the assessment of a sufficiently serious breach of a right-conferring EU law provision.
82 Precisely, in Köbler, the Court found no violation of the duty to refer.
83 For a slightly less optimistic view, see I. Maher, ‘The CILFIT Criteria Clarified and Extended for National Courts of Last Resort under Art. 267 TFEU’, 7(1) European Papers (2022) p. 265 at p. 271.
84 Somewhat ironically, a lower national court would then be assessing whether its supreme court made a suitable evaluation of acte clair while, potentially, the latter court would have disregarded the interpretive doubt raised by the former court (or another lower court). Such a situation confirms that interpretive doubt coming from lower courts should not be dismissed as irrelevant by courts of last instance.
85 Again, the ECtHR case law is instructive for that matter. While the Strasbourg Court sometimes considers that the mere finding of a violation of Art. 6(1) of the Convention by a failure to refer constitutes just satisfaction, it has also awarded damages in such cases (see, respectively, Sanofi Pasteur c/France and Bio Farmland Betriebs v Romania, with regard to the moral damage that resulted from the failure to refer).
86 On that judgment, see notably A. Turmo, ‘A Dialogue of Unequals – The European Court of Justice Reasserts National Courts’ Obligations under Article 267(3) TFEU’, 15(2) EuConst (2019) p. 340; S. Gervasoni, ‘Repenser les termes du dialogue des juges’, Actualité juridique du droit administratif (2019) p. 150; A. Iliopoulou-Penot, ‘La sanction des juges suprêmes nationaux pour défaut de renvoi préjudiciel’, Revue française du droit administratif (2019) p. 139.
87 That judgment was especially brutal inasmuch as the Court found a violation of the duty to refer on the grounds of a perplexing assessment of reasonable interpretive doubt whereby the existence of the latter derives from the finding, in that very judgment, of a breach of the substantive provisions of EU law in issue (see para. 112).
88 See C. Lacchi, ‘Review by Constitutional Courts of the Obligation of National Courts of Last Instance to Refer a Preliminary Question to the Court of Justice of the EU’, 16(6) German Law Journal (2015) p. 1663.
89 Cilfit, supra n. 2, para. 9; Consorzio Italian Management, paras. 53-54.
90 Consorzio Italian Management, para. 53.
91 For such a view, although expressed with caution, see G. Gentile and M. Bonelli, ‘La jurisprudence des petits pas: C-561/19, Consorzio Italian Management e Catania Multiservizi and Catania Multiservizi’, REALaw.blog, ⟨https://realaw.blog/2021/11/30/la-jurisprudence-des-petits-pas-c-561-19-consorzio-italian-management-e-catania-multiservizi-and-catania-multiservizi-by-giulia-gentile-and-matteo-bonelli/⟩, visited 12 October 2022.
92 Consorzio Italian Management, supra n. 1, para. 44.
93 Ibid., para. 49.