Judgment;Judgment (extracts) — ECLI:EU:T:2017:752
Date: 2017-10-25
Language of the case: Greek
Court formation: Seventh Chamber
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF)
Procedure: Action for annulment - unfounded
Origin: Greece

summary report on the recovery procedures undertaken in response to irregularities. This shall give a breakdown of the amounts not yet recovered, by administrative and/or judicial procedure and by year of the primary administrative or judicial finding of the irregularity’. Furthermore, it follows from the second subparagraph of Article 32(3) of Regulation No 1290/2005 that ‘Member States shall make available to the Commission detailed particulars of the individual recovery procedures and of the individual sums not yet recovered’. 45 However, as stated by the Conciliation Body in paragraph 6.2 of its opinion of 19 October 2013, ‘the Greek authorities have not produced a table of cases in which deadlines had not been respected’. Thus, contrary to what the Hellenic Republic claims in paragraph 32 of the application, the Commission was not in a position to determine precisely the amounts not recovered, as that Member State had failed properly to complete the tables under Annex III to Regulation No 885/2006, notwithstanding the Commission’s repeated requests for it to do so. The failure in that regard, as is apparent from paragraph 19.6.3 of the summary report, is one of the key controls that ‘[had not been] applied or had been applied so poorly or so infrequently that they were completely ineffective for pursuing irregularities in conformity with the requirements [resulting from the relevant legislation]’. Those key controls consisted in appropriate procedures and checks to ensure (i) that unduly paid amounts would, in good time, be identified, recovered and reimbursed to the funds; (ii) that the accounting documents and data relating to data management were correct; and (iii) that the debtor’s ledger and Annex III to Regulation No 885/2006 were completed. 46 It should be borne in mind in this regard that, according to the Guidelines, when key controls are not applied, or applied poorly or infrequently, the application of a flat-rate financial correction may be justified. 47 Consequently, given that, during the checks carried out in 2009, it had found, in the course of the examination of several individual cases, a recurrent failure to recover or delay in the recovery of debts of the funds concerned, the Commission had reason to believe that there would be similar shortcomings in all of the cases and, therefore, in the light of the Guidelines, given that it was not possible to determine precisely the losses suffered by the European Union, to envisage a flat-rate correction (see, to that effect and by analogy, with regard to anomalies in controls carried out by a Member State, judgment of 24 April 2008, Belgium v Commission, C‑418/06 P, EU:C:2008:247, paragraph 136 and the case-law cited). 48 The first plea in law must therefore be rejected as unfounded. … The third and fourth pleas in law 65 In the context of its third plea, the Hellenic Republic disputes, in essence, the justification for the flat-rate financial correction concerning the supposed failure to offset the debts between agricultural funds and claims, in the context of its fourth plea, that that correction based on the obligation to account for the interest in the tables provided for under Annex III to Regulation No 885/2006 has no basis in law. 66 It must be noted in this regard that it is expressly stated in the notification that the flat-rate financial correction of 10% proposed in paragraph 1.1 of its annex on account of delays in the recovery procedure ‘also covers the risk for the funds described in paragraph 1.2 (Offsetting) and paragraph 1.3 (Interest reporting in [the tables under Annex III to Regulation No 885/2006])’. It is further indicated, in paragraph 1.2 in fine of the annex to the notification, that ‘no further correction [has therefore been] proposed’ by reason of the lack of a specific procedure for offsetting between funds. The same reasoning was followed in regard to the failure to report interest in the tables under Annex III to Regulation No 885/2006. The Commission stated, in paragraph 1.3, in fine, of the annex to the notification, that the correction relating thereto ‘was covered by the flat-rate correction of 10% proposed in paragraph 1.1 (on account of the delays in the recovery procedure)’. 67 The letter of 17 July 2015 also includes an annex which summarises the Commission’s position following the intervention of the Conciliation Body. The Commission emphasises, in the second indent of paragraph 2, that ‘the flat-rate financial correction of 10% proposed in Point A (delays in the recovery procedure) also covers Points B and C (offsetting as between funds and interest reporting in the table under Annex III [to Regulation No 885/2006])’. The same terms are used in the summary report, in the second indent of paragraph 19.6.5 in fine. 68 That approach is, moreover, consistent with the Guidelines, according to which, where several deficiencies are found in the same system, the flat rates are not cumulated, the most serious deficiency being taken as an indication of the risks presented by the control system as a whole. 69 It is therefore clear from the foregoing considerations that the two deficiencies which are the subject of the third and fourth pleas did not result in any increase in the flat-rate financial correction of 10% imposed on account of the delays in the recovery procedure. It follows that the examination of the third and fourth pleas cannot have any effect on the lawfulness of the contested decision. 70 It follows from case-law that, where some of the grounds in a decision on their own provide a sufficient legal basis for the decision, any errors in the other grounds of the decision have no effect in any event on its operative part. Moreover, where the enacting terms of a Commission decision are based on several pillars of reasoning, each of which would in itself be sufficient to justify those terms, that decision should, in principle, be annulled only if each of those pillars is vitiated by an illegality. In such a case, an error or other illegality which affects only one of the pillars of reasoning cannot be sufficient to justify annulment of the decision at issue because that error could not have had a decisive effect on the operative part adopted by the institution which adopted that decision (order of 26 February 2013, Castiglioni v Commission, T‑591/10, not published, EU:T:2013:94, paragraph 44; judgments of 15 January 2015, France v Commission, T‑1/12, EU:T:2015:17, paragraph 73; and of 28 September 2016, United Kingdom v Commission, T‑437/14, EU:T:2016:577, paragraph 73). 71 The third and fourth pleas must consequently be rejected as ineffective. The fifth plea in law 72 In the context of its fifth plea, the Hellenic Republic seeks the annulment of the contested decision in so far that it concerns nine individual situations and it is of the opinion that each of those situations is vitiated by a different complaint which will be examined one after the other. … 114 Regard being had to all of the foregoing, the fifth plea must be wholly rejected and, therefore, the action must be dismissed in its entirety. Costs 115 Under Article 134(1) of the Rules of Procedure, the unsuccessful party is to be ordered to pay the costs if they have been applied for in the successful party’s pleadings. 116 Since the Hellenic Republic has been unsuccessful, it must be ordered to pay the costs, in accordance with the form of order sought by the Commission. On those grounds, THE GENERAL COURT (Seventh Chamber) hereby: 1. Dismisses the action; 2. Orders the Hellenic Republic to pay the costs. Tomljenović Marcoulli Kornezov Delivered in open court in Luxembourg on 25 October 2017. [Signatures] * Language of the case: Greek. 1 Only the paragraphs of the present judgment which the Court considers it appropriate to publish are reproduced here.