Judgment_paragraph 43 · Criminal proceedings against AB and Others (C-3/20)

43Secondly, the immunities of the representatives of the Member States participating in the work of the EU institutions, which are the subject of Article 10 of the Protocol on privileges and immunities, cannot benefit a governor of a national central bank either. On one hand, the latter cannot be regarded as the representative of a Member State when he or she performs his or her duties as a member of the Governing Council or the General Council of the ECB. Article 130 TFEU and Article 7 of the Protocol on the Statute of the ESCB and of the ECB provide that, in carrying out the tasks conferred on them by the Treaties, the governors of the national central banks may not request or take any instructions from, inter alia, the national authorities (see, to that effect, judgment of 26 February 2019, Rimšēvičs and ECB v Latvia, C‑202/18 and C‑238/18, EU:C:2019:139, paragraph 72). On the other hand and on any view, the immunities of the representatives of the Member States participating in the work of the EU institutions are the ‘customary … immunities’, which, as the Advocate General stated in point 56 of her Opinion, must be understood as a reference to the immunities provided for by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, concluded in Vienna on 18 April 1961. Such immunities, which are granted to diplomats in order to ensure the effective performance of the functions of diplomatic and consular missions in the State of residence, cannot by nature be relied on by their beneficiaries as against the States which they represent. Consequently, the governor of a central bank of a Member State cannot, in any event, rely on entitlement to those immunities in respect of the authorities of that Member State.