INTERPRETĂRI ȘI VALENȚE ALE CONCEPTULUI DE NEÎNDEPLINIRE A OBLIGAȚIILOR ASUMATE PRIN TRATATE ÎN JURISPRUDENȚA CURȚII DE JUSTIȚIE A UNIUNII EUROPENE

As a fundamental instrument for ensuring the functioning of the European Union legal order,
the action for the non-compliance with the European obligations is the judicial instrument by which
the Union authorities, led by the Commission and the Luxembourg jurisdictional structure, exercise
direct control over the conduct of the Member States in relation to EU law imperatives. Located
somewhere in the middle between the legality control and the action for liability, the non-compliance
with the obligations raises separate and complex issues difficult to understand in the absence of the
vast jurisdictional experience of the Court of Justice of the European Union.
If, under procedural terms, the present action does not present particular challenges, imposing,
as a rule, a mechanism for cooperation between the European Commission and the defendant
Member State (as a pre-contentious phase), in which the Court of Justice often plays a subsidiary
role (contentious phase), from a material point of view, the non-compliance with the European
obligations involves different forms and meanings that transcend both the letter and the spirit of the
treaties, even in their current form, consolidated after the Treaty of Lisbon (2009). In such a context,
the present study aims to review the most frequently used meanings which the case law of the Court
of Justice of the European Union has given to the phrase „non-compliance with European
obligations”, in the light of current regulations, past experiences and, last but not least, the aim
pursued by this procedure, namely to sanction any derogation from the uniform and synchronized
application of the European Union law.