Victory at second glance – SkyECC at the General Court
- Joint Defense Team
- 18 hours ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 4 minutes ago
Our co-founder and partner Justus Reisinger has achieved an initial victory in proceedings against Europol and Eurojust before the General Court, even if this only becomes clear at second glance.
What happened?
Justus Reisinger filed a lawsuit against Europol and Eurojust on behalf of a client who was charged with criminal offences in the Netherlands, which were to be proven using SkyECC data. The lawsuit alleged that both Europol and Eurojust, as members of the Joint Investigation Team with the Netherlands, Belgium and France, had collected the SkyECC data unlawfully. The core argument is that the collection, storage and systematic analysis of all communication, connection and traffic data of over 170,000 users over a period of 21 months without concrete suspicion against the individual users violates European law.
What was the challenge?
Since the question of whether the operation to collect SkyECC data violates European law has not yet been decided by the national courts with reference to the principle of mutual recognition, and all requests to refer this question of European law, namely whether the French decisions that were supposed to legitimise the mass collection violate European law, to the ECJ for a ruling have been rejected, the idea arose to achieve this through a back door. The problem is that, according to Article 267 TFEU, the ECJ can only rule on specific referrals from national courts.
Justus Reisinger therefore used a legal manoeuvre and maximum creativity to bring this, in our view, crucial question to the ECJ – against the will of the national courts.
To do so, he used the involvement of Eurojust and Europol in the preparation, implementation, evaluation and analysis of the SkyECC data. Eurojust and Europol are agencies of the European Union. According to Article 263 TFEU, any natural person may bring an action before the Court of Justice of the European Union against acts of European Union institutions which are directed against them or which affect them directly and individually. This is precisely what Justus Reisinger did.
The biggest challenge was getting the General Court to consider the actions admissible. Accordingly, at the hearing on 9 September 2025, both Europol and Eurojust, represented by a host of lawyers, attempted to have the actions against Eurojust and Europol declared inadmissible.
The decision of the General Court of 25 February 2026 - T-1180/23 - BW/ Europol und Eurojust (SkyECC I)
We cleared this major hurdle of the admissibility of the lawsuits. On 25 February 2026, the General Court ruled that the lawsuits against Europol and Eurojust were admissible. However, the General Court also ruled that, in its view, the participation of Eurojust and Europol in the SkyECC operation was lawful. But the decision deals primarily with the question of the admissibility of the lawsuits. In particular, the decision remains superficial on the core question of whether the operation violated applicable European law.
What happens next?
Now that the General Court has ruled that the lawsuit against Europol and Eurojust is admissible, we will appeal the decision. Then, finally, the Grand Chamber of the ECJ will address the question of all questions:
‘Did the uncontrolled mass collection and processing of highly personal communication data of over 170,000 users for law enforcement purposes without any concrete suspicion of a crime over a period of 21 months violate European law?’
This is the only appropriate place to make this decision, which affects hundreds of thousands of citizens across Europe. We are proud and delighted that we have succeeded in bringing this very question before the ECJ, which all national courts have so far tried to avoid.
We will stay on the ball, fight on and continue to report on developments.
