Judgment (extracts);Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2017:820
Date: 2017-11-17
Language of the case: Polish
Court formation: Seventh Chamber
Subject matter: State aids;Competition
Procedure: Action for annulment - successful
Origin: Poland

Summary — Judgment of the General Court (Seventh Chamber), 17 November 2017 1. Acts of the institutions — Withdrawal — Unlawful acts — Decision declaring aid incompatible with the internal market — Adoption of a new decision — Obligation to reopen the formal investigation procedure — None — Commission’s obligation to give the parties concerned, and therefore the infra-State bodies, notice to submit their comments — Scope (Art. 108(2) TFEU; Council Regulation No 659/1999, Art. 1(h)) 2. Judicial proceedings — Introduction of new pleas during the proceedings — Conditions — Amplification of an existing plea — Admissibility (Rules of Procedure of the General Court, Art. 48(2)) 1. In the context of the withdrawal of a decision declaring aid incompatible with the internal market, the procedure for replacing an illegal measure may be resumed at the very point at which the illegality occurred, and the Commission is not required to recommence the procedure by going back further than that precise point. This also applies, in the absence of any Court annulment of the measure, when the author withdraws and replaces an illegal measure. Nevertheless, the fact that the Commission is not required to recommence the procedure by going back further than the precise point at which the illegality occurred does not, however, mean that it is not, as a matter of principle, required to call on the interested parties to submit their observations before a new decision is adopted. It follows from Article 108(2) TFEU and from Article 1(h) of Regulation No 659/1999 laying down detailed rules for the application of Article 93 of the EC Treaty that, during the investigation phase, the Commission must give interested parties, including the undertakings concerned and the infra-State body which granted the aid, an opportunity to submit their comments. This rule is in the nature of an essential procedural requirement. It must allow the interested parties concerned to be involved in the administrative procedure to the extent appropriate in the light of the circumstances of the case. In that context, it has in particular already been held that the Commission was required, where appropriate, to ask interested parties for comments where the legal regimes changed before the Commission took its decision on the basis of the new rules, unless that new legal regime did not contain any substantial change in relation to that previously in force. Furthermore, even if it is permissible for the opening decision merely to summarise the relevant issues of fact and law, to include a preliminary assessment as to the aid character of the State measure in question and to set out its doubts as to whether the measure is compatible with the internal market, that decision must give interested parties the opportunity effectively to participate in the formal investigation procedure, during which they will have the opportunity to put forward their arguments. It is necessary, in particular, for the Commission to define sufficiently the framework of its investigation so as not to render meaningless the right of interested parties to put forward their comments. Finally, the infringement of the right of the interested parties to be given the opportunity to submit their comments results in the annulment of the vitiated measure, without it being necessary to determine the existence of an effect on the party that alleges such an infringement, or ascertain that the outcome of the administrative procedure might have been different. (see paras 62, 63, 65, 66, 81) 2. See the text of the decision. (see para. 70)