Inviolability of the archives of the European Central Bank kept by the national central banks of the Member States – remarks in the light of the judgement of the Court of Justice of 17 December 2020 in Case C-316/19, Commission v. Slovenia
Abstract
The goal of this article is to analyse the judgement of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 17 December 2020 in case C-316/19, European Commission v Republic of Slovenia. In that document, the Court of Justice defined the “archives of the Union” for the purposes of applying Article 2 of Protocol (No 7) on the privileges and immunities of the European Union, which provides for the immunity of their inviolability. This definition has a very broad scope, as it also covers the Union archives kept by the national central banks of the Member States. Moreover, the term “archives of the Union” also refers to documents authored by national central banks which relate to the performance of the tasks of the European System of Central Banks and of the Eurosystem. According to the Court of Justice, this state of affairs is the result of the “particularly close relations” between the European Central Bank and the national central banks. One of the consequences of the judgement in case C-316/19 is that in potential proceedings concerning the constitutional liability of the President of the National Bank of Poland, the electronic equipment he used for official purposes may be protected by the EU immunity of inviolability
Keywords:
European Union, privileges and immunities, European System of Central Banks, European Central BankReferences
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University of Silesia https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2950-9073
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