Avis juridique important

Order of the President of the Court of 21 March 1997. - Kingdom of the Netherlands v Council of the European Union. - Application for interim measures - System of association of the overseas countries and territories - Safeguard measures - Serious and irreparable harm. - Case C-110/97 R. European Court reports 1997 Page I-01795

Summary

1 Applications for interim measures - Suspension of operation - Interim measures - Conditions for granting - Prima facie case - Serious and irreparable harm - Discretion of judge hearing the application

(EC Treaty, Arts 185 and 186; Rules of Procedure of the Court, Art. 83(2))

2 Applications for interim measures - Suspension of operation - Interim measures - Limited duration of the contested act - Definitive effects of the decision sought - Balancing of all the interests involved

(EC Treaty, Arts 185 and 186; Rules of Procedure of the Court, Art. 86(4))

3 Applications for interim measures - Suspension of operation - Interim measures - Powers of the judge hearing the application - Limits

(EC Treaty, Arts 185 and 186)

4 Applications for interim measures - Suspension of operation - Interim measures - Conditions for granting - Serious and irreparable harm - Limited duration of the contested act - Possibility of renewal - Not taken into account

(EC Treaty, Arts 185 and 186; Rules of Procedure of the Court, Art. 83(2))

5 The judge hearing an application for interim relief may order suspension of the operation of an act, or other interim measures, if it is established that such an order is justified, prima facie, in fact and in law and that it is urgent in so far as, in order to avoid serious and irreparable harm to the applicant's interests, it must be made and produce its effects before a decision is reached in the main action. Such an order must further be provisional, inasmuch as it must not prejudge the points of law or fact in issue or neutralize in advance the effects of the decision subsequently to be given in the main action.

In the context of that overall examination, the judge hearing the application enjoys a broad discretion and is free to determine, having regard to the specific circumstances of the case, the manner and order in which those various conditions are to be examined, there being no rule of Community law imposing a preestablished scheme of analysis within which the need to order interim measures must be assessed.

6 Where a decision by the judge hearing an application for interim relief, adopted in circumstances of urgency, to suspend or modify the contested act, would in practice have more or less definitive effects, regard being had to the limited duration of that act, it is for that judge to weigh the applicant's interest in the immediate adoption of an interim measure, on the one hand, and observance of the rights of defence of the other parties to the proceedings, on the other, having regard to what such an interim measure would actually involve.

7 Where, in proceedings for interim relief, the contested act falls within a sector in which the Community institution appears to have a large margin of discretion in deciding whether the conditions justifying the adoption of the measure in question exist, and where most of the applicant's pleas specifically concern the manner in which that institution exercised that discretion with respect to the need for the measure and the detailed rules for its application which it is to contain, so that they raise particularly complex legal problems and economic questions which merit thorough examination after a hearing inter partes, and where, given the limited duration of the contested act, a decision suspending or modifying it would in practice have more or less definitive effects, the judge hearing the application may substitute his assessment for that of the institution only in exceptional circumstances.

8 In the case of an application for interim relief in the form of suspension of operation of an act of limited duration or in the form of any other interim measure concerning that act, the damage which might be sustained following a renewal of the act cannot be taken into consideration.