Observations made in connection with earlier discharges or reports of the court of auditors

• Author: Court of Justice of the European Union
• Pages: 60-62

V. OBSERVATIONS MADE IN CONNECTION WITH

EARLIER DISCHARGES OR REPORTS

OF THE COURT OF AUDITORS

The char ter of the au thorising ocers duties provides that the author ising ocer by del egation is to

include, in his annual acti vity report, remark s concerning the follow up to observations expre ssed by the

Court of Audito rs and/or the Discharge Autho rity.

A. OBSERVATIONS MADE BY THE COURT OF AUDITORS

t is important to note tha t the Court of Auditors indicated, in paragr aph 10.8 of its last Ann ual Report on

the implementatio n of the budget concerning the nancial year 2017, that no specic problem concerning

the Court was de tected.

The results of the 2017 controls th us conrm, as they have since 2010, the absence of obser vations from

the Court of Aud itors.

With regard to Special Report N o 14/2017 on the Examination of performance in the management of cases

at the Court of Jus tice of the European Unio n, published in Septem ber 2017, the Court continues to work

towards the implementation of the recommendations issued, in particular with regard to the development

of the new integrated case management system.

During 2018, the Court of Justice noted a signicant increase in its judicial activit y, due to a 15% increase

in the number of cas es brought. Proac tive case management has never theless bor ne fruit, wi th the

num ber of ca ses cl osed in 2 018 incr easi ng by al most 10% com pare d to the previ ous ye ar. n ad diti on, th ese

development s have led Member s to maintain their v ery high leve l of vigilance in ensur ing that internal

deadlines for the processing of cases are respected. The meeting of the Presidents of Chamber s carried

out a rigorous control on the state of aairs in the Chambers.

As mentioned above, however, further organisational and procedural measures are needed to enable

the Court to cope with an ever-increasing worklo ad. Thus, on 26 March 2018, the Court of Justice made a

leg isla tive reque st on t he bas is of the secon d para grap h of Ar ticl e 281 TF EU to ame nd Pro toco l No 3 on th e

Statute of the Court. The request essentially concerned the transfer to the General Court of jurisdiction

to rule, at rst inst ance, on certain c ategories of actio n for failure to full obligatio ns, on the one hand,

and the introduct ion of a mechanism whereby the Court determines whether certain categories of appeal

should be allowed to proceed, on the other hand. The legislative procedure is still ongoing, but could soon

be concluded favo urably for the pa rt of the reques t relating to the me chanism to determi ne whether

certain categor ies of appeal should be allowed to proceed.

n ad diti on, di scus sion s were he ld in 2018 on fur ther me asure s to opt imis e eci enc y in cas e manag emen t,

which led to a day of reectio n for Members of the Court of Justice on 19 January 2019. The recommendations

of the Court of Auditors for an ever more ecie nt management of resources have been duly t aken into

account in this context.

With regard to the General Court, during 2018, this court adapted the internal timetables according to the

nat ure an d comp lexi ty of th e case s (comp eti tion /sta te aid /mea sure s to pro tect tr ade, int elle ctu al pro pert y,

special procedure s, inadmissibili ty claims/dec laration that the re is no need to adjudic ate, other case s),

prepared and anal ysed case -by-case  statis tics by phase of proce ssing the cases , conducted in -depth

monitoring of the planning of the activi ty of the Chambers aected by the departure of judges as part of

the three-year renewal with a view to optimising the management of priorities and ensuring the continuity

60 Annual manage ment report - 2018