The European Parliament adopted a resolution drafted by Guiseppe GARGANI (EPP-ED, Italy) and approved the draft Council decision amending the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice in order to include Bulgarian and Romanian among the languages of cases.

In its opinion on the requests for amendment of Article 29 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice and Article 35 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, presented by the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance in accordance with Article 64 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, the Commission states that the amendments requested by the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance which aim to include Bulgarian and Romanian among the procedural languages of the Court of Justice and the Court of First of Instance are purely technical amendments which require no comments from the Commission.

The Commission accordingly agrees to the texts presented by the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance.

PURPOSE: to amend the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice of the European Communities as regards the language arrangements, in order to include Bulgarian and Romanian among the languages of cases as laid down in the Rules of Procedure.

PROPOSED ACT: Council Decision.

CONTENT: o n the accession of the Republic of Bulgaria and of Romania, Bulgarian and Romanian become official languages of the European Union. It is consequently proposed to add those languages to the list of languages listed in Article 29(1) of the Rules of Procedure as the languages of a case.

In terms of Article 64 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, until the rules governing the language

arrangements applicable at the Court of Justice have been adopted in this Statute, all amendments to the provisions of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice governing language arrangements must be made in accordance with the procedure laid down in the second paragraph of Article 245 of the EC Treaty and the second paragraph of Article 160 of the EAEC Treaty, that is to say by unanimous decision of the Council after consulting the European Parliament and the Commission.

The languages of a case shall be Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, or Swedish.

PURPOSE: to amend the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice of the European Communities as regards the language arrangements, in order to include Bulgarian and Romanian among the languages of cases as laid down in the Rules of Procedure.

PROPOSED ACT: Council Decision.

CONTENT: o n the accession of the Republic of Bulgaria and of Romania, Bulgarian and Romanian become official languages of the European Union. It is consequently proposed to add those languages to the list of languages listed in Article 29(1) of the Rules of Procedure as the languages of a case.

In terms of Article 64 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, until the rules governing the language

arrangements applicable at the Court of Justice have been adopted in this Statute, all amendments to the provisions of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice governing language arrangements must be made in accordance with the procedure laid down in the second paragraph of Article 245 of the EC Treaty and the second paragraph of Article 160 of the EAEC Treaty, that is to say by unanimous decision of the Council after consulting the European Parliament and the Commission.

The languages of a case shall be Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, or Swedish.