In its judgment of 10 September 2019 the General Court of the European Union annulled the so-called OPAL decision. In the OPAL decision the Commission had approved the new conditions of operation of the OPAL pipeline, the pipeline which connects North Stream 1 with the Czech gas transmission system and which is exempted from TPA for 22 years. According to the new conditions of operation the formerly applied 50 % capacity cap was removed with the result that Gazprom, the only undertaking that has physical access to the OPAL pipeline, could transfer gas using almost the whole capacity of the pipeline. Poland brought the case before the General Court which upheld the application for annulment of the OPAL decision. In the reasoning of the judgement the General Court held that according to the principle of solidarity as laid down is Article 194(1) TFEU in the area of energy policy the Commission should have assessed the effects of the modified conditions of operation on the security of gas supply of Poland and the Central European Region. Since the Commission failed to assess these potential regional effects, especially the possibility of diverting large quantities from the currently used transfer routes - namely the Yamal and the Brotherhood pipelines -, its decision was unlawful and had to be annulled.