CJEU rejects as inadmissible MEP Tomac’s complaint about Romania's non-acceptance into Schengen

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) rejected as ‘ manifestly inadmissible’ the action for annulment brought by Romanian MEP Eugen Tomac against the EU Council over the decision not to accept Romania into Schengen and also declined jurisdiction in the case, according to the judgment published on the CJEU portal.   According to established case-law on the admissibility of actions for annulment, acts which definitively establish the position of an institution at the end of an administrative procedure and which are intended to produce binding legal effects constitute actionable acts within the meaning of Article 263 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the CJEU recalls, according to Agerpres.   Also, the conclusion of the Schengen evaluation procedures and the verification of the criteria for accession to this area of free movement, already carried out in 2011 in the case of Romania, is only one stage of the procedure, which must be accompanied by a consultation of the European Parliament, followed by a decision of the EU Council on the full application of the provisions of the Schengen acquis in Romania.   Such a decision can only be taken unanimously by the Member States in the EU Council, and the completion of the preliminary stages of the procedure does not mean that the EC no longer has to adopt a unanimous decision, which has no deadline, the CJEU notes. As such, the failure to adopt the draft submitted to the vote of the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council on 8 December 2022 cannot be considered an actionable act within the meaning of Article 263 TFEU, the European court ruled, thus considering the action brought by Eugen Tomac "manifestly inadmissible".   Eugen Tomac announced the opening of an action for annulment before the CJEU against the decision rejecting Romania's Schengen membership, considering that if the court were to annul this decision, a new vote on the same decision could no longer be a political vote, but a technical vote, therefore a positive one, given that Romania meets the Schengen accession criteria.