The Court of Justice of the European Union has dismissed seven actions by Poland seeking to annul central measures in the bloc’s Fit for 55 climate package, leaving rules on carbon pricing, vehicle emissions, energy efficiency and national reduction targets intact.
Poland argued that the measures were essentially fiscal or significantly affected the structure of its energy supply. On that view, they should have been adopted under Treaty provisions requiring unanimity in the Council rather than through the ordinary legislative procedure.
The Court rejected that characterisation. It said the correct legal basis turns on objective factors capable of judicial review, principally a measure’s aim and content. Likely effects are not part of that inquiry because they are speculative before implementation. Six of the contested measures primarily pursue EU environmental policy; the energy-efficiency directive properly rests on the Treaty’s energy provision.
That conclusion allowed Parliament and the Council to act through the ordinary procedure, with qualified-majority voting in the Council. The Court stressed that exceptions to that procedure must be read strictly. An environmental measure does not move into an exceptional Treaty route simply because it has indirect effects on energy choices or prices.
The judgments also rejected Poland’s reliance on energy solidarity. That principle applies to EU measures in the energy field, the Court said, whereas almost all the challenged acts belong to environmental policy. The broader principle of solidarity requires the institutions to weigh national and Union interests, but it does not guarantee that legislation will have no adverse impact on a particular member state. The Social Climate Fund was among the compensatory arrangements the legislature had adopted.
Poland’s proportionality and equal-treatment arguments also failed. Because the legislation involved complex political, economic and technical choices, the EU legislature had broad discretion; none of its choices was manifestly inappropriate. The Court treated the differences between member states as reflecting objective differences in emissions performance, improvement capacity and the way trading-system costs may be passed on.
The seven final judgments concern land-use removals, vehicle-emission standards, the emissions-trading market-stability reserve, national effort-sharing targets, a separate trading system for buildings and road transport, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and energy efficiency.
Official court release and judgment links
