Official Journal of the European Union

C 131/9

(Case C-554/17) (<span class="super note-tag">1</span>)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - Judicial cooperation in civil matters - European small claims procedure - Regulation (EC) No 861/2007 - Article 16 - ‘Unsuccessful party’ - Costs of proceedings - Apportionment - Article 19 - Procedural law of the Member States)

(2019/C 131/11)

Language of the case: Swedish

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: Rebecka Jonsson

Defendant: Société du Journal L’Est Républicain

Operative part of the judgment

Article 16 of Regulation (EC) No 861/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 July 2007 establishing a European Small Claims Procedure must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation under which, where a party succeeds only in part, the national court may order each of the parties to the proceedings to bear its own procedural costs or may apportion those costs between those parties. In such a situation, the national court remains, theoretically, free to apportion the amount of those costs, provided that the national procedural rules on the apportionment of procedural costs in small cross-border claims are not less favourable than the procedural rules governing similar situations subject to domestic law and that the procedural requirements relating to the apportionment of those procedural costs do not result in the persons concerned foregoing the use of that European small claims procedure by requiring an applicant, when he has been largely successful, nonetheless to bear his own procedural costs or a substantial portion of those costs.

(<span class="note">1</span>) OJ C 402, 27.11.2017.