The Shifting State of Rights Protection vis-à-vis EU Agencies: A Look at Article 58a of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union

Article 58a of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, introduced through Regulation 2019/629, establishes a filtering mechanism for appeals brought before the Court of Justice against General Court decisions concerning the decisions of the Boards of Appeal (BoAs) of certain EU offices and agencies. This article analyses the significance and consequences of art.58a. It opens with the background to this latest reform to tackle the problem of the steady increase in the workload of the EU judiciary. It then proceeds with: an overview of the BoAs; an analysis of the significance of art.58a; an examination of two problematic aspects of the new provision, the first regarding its scope of application, the second concerning the relationship between the subject of the administrative appeal and that of the judicial proceedings; and a discussion on several organisational and procedural shortcomings in the current regulation of the BoAs that have been accentuated by the introduction of art.58a and an account of possible ways to rectify them. The article concludes with an illustration of how art.58a is the latest in a series of legislative acts that have inconsistently characterised the protection of the rights of parties to the decisions of EU agencies and mention of tools that could guarantee greater normative coherence and certainty in this area of rights protection