Judgment_paragraph 216 · Athanasios Pitsiorlas v Council of the European Union and European Central Bank (T-3/00, T-337/04)

216It should be added that the second paragraph of Article 1 EU, according to which ‘[t]his Treaty marks a new stage in the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizen’ lacks direct effect since that provision is not to be regarded as ‘clear’ within the meaning of the judgment in Case 26/62 Van Gend en Loos [1963] ECR 1 (Petrie and Others v Commission, cited in paragraph 214 above, paragraph 35).