Official Journal of the European Union

C 187/55

(Case C-316/19)

(2019/C 187/59)

Language of the case: Slovenian

Parties

Applicant: European Commission (represented by: L. Flynn and B. Rous Demiri)

Defendant: Republic of Slovenia

Form of order sought

—Pursuant to Article 258 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the Commission asks the Court of Justice to declare that, by unilaterally seizing from the premises of the Bank of Slovenia documents connected to the performance of the ESCB’s and the Eurosystem’s tasks and by unfairly cooperating with the ECB on that subject, the Republic of Slovenia has failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 343 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 39 of Protocol No 4 on the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank, Articles 2, 18 and 22 of Protocol No 7 on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Union and Article 4(3) of the Treaty on European Union.

—The Commission also asks the Court to order the Republic of Slovenia to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The search and seizure at the premises of the Bank of Slovenia on 6 July 2016 undermined the privileges attaching to the archives of the Union, as provided for in Article 343 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 39 of Protocol No 4 and Articles 2 and 22 of Protocol No 7, in conjunction with Article 18 of the latter protocol, and as provided for in Article 4(3) of the Treaty on European Union. The search and seizure were carried out unilaterally, without the ECB’s consent, and, on the assumption of a disagreement between the ECB and the Slovene bodies, without a decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Despite repeated warnings, the Slovene bodies responsible for the seizure did not attempt to separate documents forming part of the archives of the Union and did not constructively discuss the matter with the ECB.