Is there a way to pass a Java annotation as a parameter?

Yes, you can pass around annotations like this (just as if they were normal interfaces).

The only thing you can’t do is to create instances of that interface at runtime. You can only take existing annotations and pass them around.

import java.lang.annotation.*;

public class Example {

    @Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
    @Target(ElementType.METHOD)
    public static @interface Number {
        int value();
    }

    @Number(value = 42)
    public int adder(final int b) throws SecurityException, NoSuchMethodException {
        Number number = getClass().getMethod("adder", int.class).getAnnotation(Number.class);
        return addImpl(number, b);
    }

    public int addImpl(final Number a, final int b) {
        return a.value() + b;
    }

    public static void main(final String[] args) throws SecurityException, NoSuchMethodException {
        System.out.println(new Example().adder(0));
    }
}