82. Even if the Court were to consider that the duties of the Commission, as ‘Guardian of the Treaties’, when it acts outside the EU framework are more far-reaching than those argued above, and that a breach of those duties can indeed give rise to the Union’s financial liability, there would be an additional issue to address. That issue is, in substance, whether the signature of the MoU resulted in a possible breach of EU law which the Commission should have averted.
83. At first instance, the appellants complained of an alleged infringement, by reason of the inclusion of paragraphs 1.23 to 1.27 in the MoU, of their fundamental right to property, as enshrined in Article 17 of the Charter. However, leaving aside the fact that the appellants did not elaborate on how the disputed passages of the MoU infringed Article 17 of the Charter, (40) they also failed to explain why the Charter would be applicable to the MoU in the first place.
84. According to Article 51(1) of the Charter, ‘[t]he provisions of this Charter are addressed to the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the Union … and to the Member States only when they are implementing Union law. They shall therefore respect the rights, observe the principles and promote the application thereof in accordance with their respective powers and respecting the limits of the powers of the Union as conferred on it in the Treaties’.
85. For the reason explained above, I have no doubt that the Commission is to respect the EU rules, especially the Charter, when it acts outside the EU legal framework. After all, Article 51(1) of the Charter does not contain any limit as to the applicability of the Charter with respect to the EU institutions, as it does for Member States. (41) Furthermore, that provision also calls on the EU institutions to promote the application of Charter.
86. That does not mean, however, that the Commission is required to impose the standards of the EU Charter on acts which are adopted by other entities or bodies acting outside the EU framework. I must once again stress that, by entering into the ESM Treaty, certain EU Member States exercised the competence they retained in the field of economic policy.
87. According to settled case-law, the fundamental rights guaranteed within the EU legal order are designed to be applied in all situations regulated by EU law, but may not be applied outside those situations. (42) Under Article 51(1) of the Charter, its provisions are addressed to the Member States only when they are implementing EU law. Importantly, the concept of ‘implementing Union law’, as referred to in Article 51(1) of the Charter, requires a certain degree of connection above and beyond the fact that the matters covered by national law and EU law are closely related or that one of those matters has an indirect impact on the other. (43) Among the other elements to be taken into account is whether there is another substantive provision of EU law (apart from that in the Charter invoked) which, being applicable to the situation, imposes an obligation on the Member States in question. (44)
88. In Pringle, the Court has already held that the Member States did not implement EU law when they established the ESM and, therefore, the Charter was not applicable to the ESM Treaty. (45) Against that background, the appellants might have been expected to explain, in the present proceedings, why that solution might not hold true in respect of the MoU. Yet, even when requested at the hearing to elaborate on this point, the appellants did not provide any explanation: they merely took for granted the applicability of the Charter to the MoU. In particular, the appellants did not invoke any provision of EU law which, being applicable to the MoU, would bring that act within the scope of EU law for the purposes of the Charter.
89. Consequently, I take the view that, in any event, the appellants have not shown that the MoU may constitute an implementation of EU law and that, as a result, the provisions of the Charter are applicable to it.
90. In that regard, as provided for in Article 51(1) of the Charter, the institutions ought to apply the Charter in accordance with their respective powers and with due regard for the limits of the competences of the Union. Therefore, there is no basis for claiming that the Commission was obliged to apply the standards of the Charter to the MoU. It could be argued that the Commission, far from preventing a breach of EU law, would thereby have extended the applicability of the Charter into a field of law which is not meant to be regulated by that instrument.
91. In reaching this conclusion I find support in several recent orders of the Court which concerned individuals’ challenges to various restructuring measures taken by the national authorities during the recent economic crisis. Failing any explanation of the applicability of the Charter to the Member States’ measures in question, the Court held that it had no jurisdiction to rule on the compatibility of those measures with the Charter. (46) 

c) Final remarks

92. Having considered the appellants’ claims to be ill founded, I would simply add the following remarks.
93. My reading of Article 17(1) TEU and Pringle does not imply that the ESM legal framework is a legal vacuum, in which violations of individuals’ rights cannot be challenged. It simply means that the Charter does not generally constitute the legal instrument against which the lawfulness of the acts adopted by the ESM or actions taken by the ESM institutions or their agents should be assessed. Indeed, there are legal remedies available to the individuals who consider themselves affected by possible breaches of their rights in a situation such as that of the appellants.
94. On the one hand, other national and international bills of rights (47) may be applicable to their situation and, consequently, other national and international courts are likely to have jurisdiction to hear their claims based on those legal instruments.

107. In the light of all the above, the General Court did not err in law in concluding that the MoU did not originate with the Commission or ECB and that, that being the case, the Union cannot incur liability, under Articles 268 and 340 TFEU, for the inclusion in the MoU of certain passages which are allegedly in breach of the Charter. The first ground of appeal should accordingly be dismissed.