Judgment_paragraph 74 · Criminal proceedings against AB and Others (C-3/20)

74Where the national authority responsible for criminal proceedings considers from the outset that the act was carried out by the official or servant concerned in his or her official capacity, it must submit directly to the EU institution concerned a request for waiver of his or her immunity if it intends to continue those proceedings. In accordance with the rule laid down in the second paragraph of Article 17 of the Protocol on privileges and immunities, which is a specific expression of the duty of sincere cooperation owed to the Member States by the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the European Union, that request for waiver of immunity must be granted unless it is established that the interests of the Union preclude it. That functional and therefore relative character of the privileges and immunities of the European Union, to which the Court has already had occasion to draw attention (order of 13 July 1990, Zwartveld and Others, C‑2/88‑IMM, EU:C:1990:315, paragraph 20), is all the more important because the effectiveness of proceedings, in particular criminal proceedings, in the Member States is itself capable of directly falling within the interests of the European Union, in particular as regards the protection of the European Union’s financial interests (see, to that effect, judgments of 2 May 2018, Scialdone, C‑574/15, EU:C:2018:295, paragraphs 27 to 29; of 5 June 2018, Kolev and Others, C‑612/15, EU:C:2018:392, paragraphs 53 to 55; and of 18 May 2021, Asociaţia ‘Forumul Judecătorilor din România’ and Others, C‑83/19, C‑127/19, C‑195/19, C‑291/19, C‑355/19 and C‑397/19, EU:C:2021:393, paragraphs 212 to 214).