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annul Council Decision 2014/699/EU of 24 June 2014 in so far as it refers to the amendment of Article 12 of the Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF — Basic Convention) and of Appendices B (Uniform Rules concerning the Contract of International Carriage of Goods by Rail — CIM), D (Uniform Rules concerning Contracts of Use of Vehicles in International Rail Traffic — CUV) and E (Uniform Rules concerning the Contract of Use of Infrastructure in International Rail Traffic — CUI) thereto (Article 1 of the decision in conjunction with point 3, items 4 (in so far as Article 12 of the COTIF — Basic Convention is affected), 5, 7 and 12 of the annex), and

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order the Council of the European Union to pay the costs.

1.

In the opinion of the German Government, Articles 91 and 218(9) TFEU do not confer on the European Union the competence to develop a common position relating to all the rules which were the subject of consultation and decision-making on the occasion of the 25th meeting of the OTIF Revision Committee. Therefore, by adopting the decision, the Council infringed the principle of conferral pursuant to the first sentence of Article 5(2) TEU.

2.

Furthermore, the statement of reasons of the contested decision is defective because it is not sufficiently clear from that decision why the European Union has the competence to develop a common position relating to all the rules which were the subject of consultation and decision-making at the 25th meeting of the OTIF Revision Committee.

3.

In addition, by adopting the contested measure only one day before the start of the 25th meeting of the OTIF Revision Committee, the Council infringed the principle of sincere cooperation in conjunction with the principle of effective legal protection. As a result, the Federal Republic of Germany was deprived of any opportunity to bring the matter before the Court of Justice in due time in order to obtain (interim) legal protection against the contested decision.