Sittings · Document
ORDINARY LEGISLATIVE procedure
Follow up to the European Parliament legislative resolution on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on protecting persons who engage in public participation from manifestly unfounded or abusive court proceedings (“Strategic lawsuits against public participation”)
1. Rapporteur: Tiemo WÖLKEN (S&D / DE)
2. Reference numbers: 2022/0117 (COD) / A9-0223/2023 / P9_TA(2024)0085
3. Date of adoption of the resolution: 27 February 2024
4. Legal basis: Article 81(2)(f) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
5. Competent Parliamentary Committee: Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI)
6. Commission's position: accepts all amendments. The Commission presented the following statement in plenary:
The Commission takes note of the rules on international jurisdiction and applicable law the European Parliament proposed in its mandate for the negotiations on the proposal for a directive on protecting persons who engage in public participation from manifestly unfounded or abusive court proceedings.
The Commission agrees on the importance of rules on jurisdiction and applicable law in the context of a comprehensive protection against abusive litigation in SLAPP cases. For this reason, in its recent legal studies on the Brussels Ia and Rome II Regulations, the Commission has specifically addressed these SLAPP-related matters.
However, such changes should be made in the horizontal Regulations covering international jurisdiction and applicable law to avoid a fragmentation of these rules across various instruments, and they should be proposed with a careful assessment of the impact of such changes.
Consequently, the Commission will continue the already-ongoing review process concerning the Brussels Ia and Rome II Regulations. It’s the firm intention of the Commission to issue application reports on both these instruments with a particular focus on SLAPP in the near future in order to facilitate the political decisions on their revision.