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The purpose of this Case Note is to analyse the latest judgment of the Court of Justice related to Article 17(1) TFEU – the Freikirchecase. After providing the key facts and the reasoning of the Court, the note outlines the common features and differences of the case with the previous case law related to this provision. The author claims that while the Court in the Freikirchecase recognizes the protective effect of Article 17(1) TFEU, it implicitly creates potential to examine other national recognition systems of churches. In the author’s view, in cases of a more restrictive national systems than the Austrian one, this provision should be used as a part of the proportionality analysis to balance the restrictions against the potential impact on the status of churches under national law and their autonomy. In the author’s view, this would be the consequence of the protective effect of this provision, which may be perceived as the European Wall of Separation between the EU on one hand, and the status of churches under national law and the autonomy of churches on the other hand.

The process of the selection of the seats of an EU agency has been an intergovernmental decision-making between the EU Member States, in most cases separated from the EU legislative process related to the establishment and functioning of the agency. The Court of Justice had a possibility to assess the legality of this hybrid process and decided that the power to determine the seat of EU agency belongs solely to the EU co-legislators. The three judgments in five cases contain several contentious points regarding the interpretation of Article 341 TFEU, which will be analyzed in this case note. In addition, its purpose will be also to assess the implications of the judgments to future decision-making process related to the selection of seats of EU agencies.