Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2025:377
Date: 2025-05-22
Language of the case: Romanian
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Romania

Summary C-416/24 – 1 
Case C-416/24 
Summary of the request for a preliminary ruling pursuant to Article 98(1) of 
the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice 
Date lodged: 
11 June 2024 
Referring court: 
Curtea de Apel Bacău (Romania) 
Date of the decision to refer: 
18 April 2024 
Appellant and applicant at first instance: 
On Air Media Professionals SRL 
Respondent and defendant at first instance: 
Agenția pentru Întreprinderi Mici și Mijlocii Iași 
  
Subject matter of the main proceedings 
Appeal brought by On Air Media Professionals SRL, the appellant and applicant 
at first instance (‘the appellant’) against the civil judgment of 3 May 2023 in 
which the Tribunalul Neamț (‘the Regional Court, Neamț’) dismissed its action 
for the annulment of an administrative act issued by the Agenția pentru 
Întreprinderi Mici și Mijlocii Iași (Agency for Small and Medium-sized 
Enterprises Iași, the respondent and defendant at first instance; ‘the respondent’), 
by which the latter had ordered the recovery of State aid granted through non-
refundable external funds, relating to the Operational Programme for 
Competitiveness 2014-2020, in the context of the COVID-19 crisis 
Subject matter and legal basis of the request 
Pursuant to Article 267 TFEU, the interpretation is sought of EU law, in particular 
of the principles of the protection of legitimate expectations and legal certainty, as 
regards the correction, by means of Regulation No 2021/452, of the Romanian 
language version of Regulation No 651/2014 
EN 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-416/24 
 
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Questions referred for a preliminary ruling 
1. Does the adoption of a regulation correcting the official Romanian language 
version of an EU regulation, namely Commission Regulation (EU) 2021/452 
correcting the Romanian language version of Regulation (EU) No 651/2014, have 
the effect of retroactively applying the corrected version, from the entry into force 
of the original regulation, or does it produce effects only for the future, after the 
entry into force of the correcting regulation, in a situation in which the national 
authorities granted State aid in accordance with the conditions laid down in the 
original Romanian language version of Regulation (EU) No 651/2014 and have 
requested, following the entry into force of Regulation (EU) 2021/452, the 
recovery of the State aid granted? 
2. Does the equivalence of the language versions of an EU regulation mean 
that the national authorities of a Member State may rely, against a beneficiary of 
State aid granted in accordance with the original Romanian language version of 
Commission Regulation (EU) No 651/2014, on the provisions of Commission 
Regulation (EU) 2021/452 correcting the Romanian language version of 
Regulation (EU) No 651/2014 in order to request the recovery of State aid, in the 
absence of any fault on the part of the aid beneficiary? 
3. Are EU law and, in particular, the principles of the protection of legitimate 
expectations and legal certainty, to be interpreted as precluding the recovery of 
State aid granted in compliance with the conditions initially laid down in the 
Romanian language version, conditions which, however, did not exist in the other 
language versions of Regulation (EU) No 651/2014, when the correction was 
made by means of Regulation (EU) 2021/452 to the Romanian language version 
after the State aid was granted? 
Provisions of European Union law relied on 
Article 55 TEU and Articles 288 and 358 TFEU 
Commission Regulation (EU) No 651/2014 of 17 June 2014 declaring certain 
categories of aid compatible with the internal market in application of Articles 107 
and 108 of the Treaty, Article 2(18)(a) 
Commission Regulation (EU) 2021/452 of 15 March 2021 correcting the 
Romanian language version of Regulation (EU) No 651/2014 declaring certain 
categories of aid compatible with the internal market in application of Articles 107 
and 108 of the Treaty – correcting, in particular, the text of the first sentence of 
Article 2(18)(a) of Regulation No 651/2014; therefore, the expression ‘alta decât 
un IMM care există de cel puțin trei ani’ (‘other than an SME that has been in 
existence for at least three years’) became, following the correction, ‘alta decât un 
IMM care există de mai puțin de trei ani’ (‘other than an SME that has been in 
existence for less than three years’), and the expression ‘un IMM aflat la 7 ani de 
la prima sa vânzare comercială’ (‘an SME from seven years after its first 
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commercial sale’) became, following the correction, ‘un IMM aflat la cel mult 
șapte ani de la prima sa vânzare comercială’ (‘an SME within seven years from its 
first commercial sale’). 
Provisions of national law relied on 
Legea contenciosului administrativ nr. 554/2004 (Law No 554/2004 on 
Administrative Proceedings) of 2 December 2004, Article 8, which provides, in 
essence, that a person adversely affected in respect of a right recognised by law or 
in respect of a legitimate interest by a unilateral administrative act may bring an 
action before the competent administrative court to seek the annulment in whole 
or in part of the act, compensation for the damage suffered and, where 
appropriate, compensation for non-material damage. 
Ordonanța de urgență a Guvernului nr. 130/2020 privind unele măsuri pentru 
acordarea de sprijin financiar din fonduri externe nerambursabile, aferente 
Programului operațional Competitivitate 2014-2020, în contextul crizei provocate 
de COVID-19, precum și alte măsuri în domeniul fondurilor europene 
(Government Emergency Ordinance No 130/2020 on certain measures to provide 
financial support through non-repayable external funds, relating to the Operational 
Programme for Competitiveness 2014-2020, in the context of the COVID-19 
crisis, and other measures in the area of European funds; ‘OUG No 130/2020’), 
Article 4, pursuant to which the micro-grants are of the value of EUR 2 000 and 
are granted only once, in lump sum form, in compliance with the provisions of 
Article 3(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1301/2013 of the European Parliament and of 
the Council and of Article 67(1)(c) of Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 of the 
European Parliament and of the Council; Articles 5 and 6, which define the 
categories of beneficiary and, respectively, the conditions for the award of the 
micro-grants, and Article 32, which provides, in essence, that the rules for 
granting State aid are laid down in the context of the State aid scheme – Support 
for SMEs, subject to the opinion of the European Commission. 
Ordinul nr. 1060/2857/2020 pentru aprobarea Schemei de ajutor de stat – Sprijin 
pentru IMM-uri în vederea depășirii crizei economice generate de pandemia de 
COVID-19 (Order No 1060/2857/2020 approving the State aid scheme – Support 
for SMEs to overcome the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic): 
point 3.6 of the Annex, which defines ‘undertakings in difficulty’ as follows: 
‘undertakings in difficulty – pursuant to Article 2(18) of Commission Regulation 
(EU) No 651/2014, an undertaking shall be considered to be in difficulty in the 
following circumstances: (i) in the case of a limited liability company (other than 
an SME that has been in existence for at least three years), where more than half 
of its subscribed share capital has disappeared as a result of accumulated losses 
(…)’ 
point 6.19 of the Annex, which provides, in particular, that ‘the general eligibility 
criteria for beneficiaries applying for funding under the measures of this State aid 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-416/24 
 
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scheme are as follows: (a) they are not in difficulty on 31 December 2019, within 
the meaning of Article 2(18) of Commission Regulation (EU) No 651/2014’ 
point 11.3 of the Annex, pursuant to which ‘where the provider of State aid 
establishes that the final beneficiaries and/or the beneficiaries of non-repayable 
financing have not complied with the provisions of the State aid scheme and/or 
those of the financing contract, [the Autoritatea de management a Programului 
operațional Competitivitate (Managing Authority for the Operational Programme 
for Competitiveness, MA OPC)] shall request them to repay the State aid 
received, together with interest thereon’. 
Ordinul nr. 2989/2020 privind aprobarea Procedurii de implementare a măsurii 
„Microgranturi acordate din fonduri externe nerambursabile” din cadrul schemei 
de ajutor de stat instituite prin Ordonanța de urgență a Guvernului nr. 130/2020 
privind unele măsuri pentru acordarea de sprijin financiar din fonduri externe 
nerambursabile, aferente Programului operațional Competitivitate 2014-2020, în 
contextul crizei provocate de COVID-19, precum și alte măsuri în domeniul 
fondurilor europene (Order No 2989/2020 approving the procedure for the 
implementation of the measure ‘Micro-grants awarded through non-repayable 
external funds’ as part of the State aid scheme established by Government 
Emergency Ordinance No 130/2020 on certain measures to provide financial 
support through non-repayable external funds, relating to the Operational 
Programme for Competitiveness 2014-2020, in the context of the COVID-19 
crisis, and other measures in the area of European funds), point 3.2(3)(d) of the 
Annex, which specifies, among the cumulative conditions to be met by the 
beneficiaries of the micro-grants, that such beneficiaries ‘were not in difficulty on 
31 December 2019’ 
Succinct presentation of the facts and procedures in the main proceedings 
1 Under OUG No 130/2020, the appellant received, by means of a financing 
contract concluded on 3 December 2020, a micro-grant of RON 9 679 granted in 
the form of non-repayable external funds. Subsequently, by decision of 
8 November 2022, the respondent ordered the recovery of the State aid in the 
amount of RON 9 679 and interest in the amount of RON 681.67, on the ground 
that it considered that, on the date that aid was granted, the appellant did not meet 
the eligibility conditions, in particular those laid down in point 3.6 of the Annex to 
Order No 1060/2857/2020. 
2 Following the rejection of the complaint lodged against that decision, on 
19 January 2013 [2023] the appellant brought an appeal under Article 8 of Law 
No 554/2004 before the Regional Court, seeking the annulment of the 
respondent’s decision. In support of that action, the appellant claimed that, on the 
date the aid was granted, it fulfilled all the conditions laid down in Articles 4, 5 
and 6 of OUG No 130/2020 and that, on that date, it also satisfied the 
requirements laid down in point 3.6 of the Annex to Order No 1060/2857/2020, 
ON AIR MEDIA PROFESSIONALS 
 
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since it had been in existence for 13 years, the latter provision referring to a 
commercial company ‘other than an SME that has been in existence for at least 
three years’. 
3 Moreover, the appellant submitted that, at the date the aid was granted, Regulation 
No 651/2014, relied on by the respondent, contained an identical provision in 
Article 2(18)(a); that provision was not amended until 2021 by Regulation 
2021/452. 
4 In view of the fact that the appellant met all the necessary conditions, submitted 
the application for aid in good faith and the eligibility indicators were generated 
automatically by the computer software made available by the authority, 
responsibility, in the respondent’s view, for any errors in the drafting of the 
applicable regulatory acts, the creation of the procedure, the completion of the 
online application and the issuing of the financing contract lies with the 
contracting authority. 
5 Applying, inter alia, Article 2(18) of Regulation No 651/2014, as corrected by 
Regulation 2021/452, the Regional Court dismissed the action, taking the view 
that Regulation 2021/452 did not amend Regulation No 651/2014, but that the 
Romanian language version of Regulation No 651/2014 had been corrected, since 
the original English version had referred, since its adoption, to undertakings which 
had been in existence for more than three years. 
6 The appellant brought an appeal against that judgment before the referring court, 
the Curtea de Apel Bacău (Court of Appeal, Bacău). 
The essential arguments of the parties in the main proceedings 
7 The appellant disputes the reference made by the Regional Court to the ‘original 
version of the regulation’ and considers that it has no legal basis in so far as the 
texts in all the official languages of the Union are equally authentic, as confirmed 
by Article 4 of Council Regulation No 1 of 15 April 1958 determining the 
languages to be used by the European Economic Community. Furthermore, at the 
time when the financing contract was signed, the Romanian language version of 
Regulation No 651/2014 had been in force, without amendment, for more than six 
and a half years, and the text of the regulation was fully consistent with all the 
other legislative acts relevant to the present case, in particular with Order 
No 1060/2857/2020, which contains an identical text. The only logical conclusion 
was that the company was not covered by the provisions relating to undertakings 
in difficulty. 
8 The respondent submits that Regulation No 651/2014, which defined the term 
‘undertaking in difficulty’, has been translated into many languages, including 
Romanian, and that the original version of that regulation is the English language 
version. In the Romanian version, Article 2(18) of the regulation contained some 
translation errors, which were corrected by Regulation 2021/452. Thus, 
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Regulation 2021/452 did not amend or supplement any legal provision, but 
corrected a translation error, since the Romanian language version was different 
from all the other language versions. 
Succinct presentation of the reasoning in the request for a preliminary ruling 
9 The referring court states that it has identified several cases decided by the 
Romanian courts in which the provisions of national and EU law referred to in the 
present case were applicable, and that that case-law is not unambiguous. 
10 It also points out that, in so far as the judgment of the Regional Court may only be 
challenged by means of an appeal, the decision which it is to render on the appeal 
is a final decision. 
11 Analysing the facts and the legal context of the case, the referring court submits 
that the legal question which it is called upon to resolve in the context of the 
appeal is whether the adoption of a regulation correcting the official Romanian 
language version of a regulation of the European Union has the effect of 
retroactively applying the corrected version, from the entry into force of the 
original regulation, or whether it produces effects only for the future, after the 
entry into force of the correcting regulation, for the purpose of determining the 
consequences which the correcting regulation has for State aid granted in 
accordance with the conditions governed by the original Romanian language 
version, in particular with a view to determining whether or not the decision to 
recover State aid is lawful. 
12 The Court of Appeal notes, first, that, although they have diametrically opposed 
positions as regards the effects that the adoption of the correcting regulation has 
on State aid granted before the correction, both parties agree that the adoption of 
the correcting regulation is key to the reasoning of the authority’s decision to 
recover the State aid. 
13 Second, although the respondent maintained in its application that, in its view, the 
original version of Regulation No 651/2014 is the English version, the referring 
court considers that, on the date of adoption of Order No 1060/2857/2020, it was 
the Romanian language version of the regulation that was taken into account, not 
the English version. Furthermore, Order No 1060/2857/2020 was not amended 
following the adoption of Regulation 2021/452; to date it still contains the same 
provisions referring to the concept of an undertaking in difficulty as meaning a 
company ‘other than an SME that has been in existence for at least three years’. 
14 The Court of Appeal considers that the existence of certain fundamental 
differences between the language versions of an EU regulation raises not only the 
issue of the effects produced by a correcting regulation, that is to say whether it 
applies from the entry into force of the original regulation or only following the 
publication of the correction, but also the problem of the establishment of an 
obligation imposed on its addressees to check all the language versions of an act 
of EU law, and not on the national authorities responsible for its application. 
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15 In other words, the Court of Appeal wonders to what extent a beneficiary of State 
aid can be criticised for not having checked all the language versions of a 
regulation at the time when it requested the grant of State aid, bearing in mind the 
fact that, although the initial Romanian language version was different from the 
other language versions, the national authorities took an active approach to 
applying the initial version, since they adopted administrative acts of a regulatory 
nature with the same content as the initial Romanian language version of 
Regulation No 651/2014 and developed an online application that checked for the 
same incorrect conditions as the initial version. 
16 The question also arises as to whether EU law, and in particular the principles of 
the protection of legitimate expectations and legal certainty, must be interpreted as 
precluding the recovery of State aid granted in compliance with the conditions 
initially laid down in the Romanian language version, in a context such as that set 
out in the present case. 
17 In that context, the referring court makes reference, first, to the fact that all the 
language versions of EU legislation are equally authentic, as is apparent from 
Article 55 TEU and Article 358 TFEU, and from paragraph 18 of the judgment of 
the Court of Justice of 6 October 1982, Cilfit, C-283/81, which requires that the 
interpretation of a provision of EU law involves a prior comparison of the 
language versions, as well as the placing of the provision in its context, for the 
purposes of its interpretation, in the light of the provisions of EU law as a whole. 
The referring court then makes reference to the case-law of the Court of Justice 
according to which ‘the wording used in one language version of a provision of 
EU law cannot serve as the sole basis for the interpretation of that provision, or be 
made to override the other language versions’ [(judgments of 26 January 2021, 
Hessischer Rundfunk, C-422/19 and C-423/19; of 9 July 2020, Naturschutzbund 
Deutschland v Landesverband Schleswig-Holstein, C-297/19, paragraph 43; of 
27 March 1990, Case 372/88, Milk Marketing Board v Cricket St Thomas, 
paragraph 19; of 14 September 2000, D, C-384/98, paragraph 16; of 3 March 
2005, Fonden Marselisborg Lystbådehavn, C-428/02, paragraph 42; of 
12 November 1998, Institute of the Motor Industry, C-149/97, paragraph 16; of 
17 January 2023, Spain v Commission, C-632/20 P, paragraphs 40 to 42; of 
28 October 2021, Varchev Finans, C-95/20, paragraph 24; and of 6 June 2018, 
Tarragó da Silveira, C-250/17, paragraph 20)]. It concludes that the interpretation 
of a language version that differs from that in the other official languages cannot 
be made by following a hierarchy between those language versions or by applying 
the rule of a majority of language versions. 
18 The equal authenticity of the language versions is intended to ensure that the 
addressees of EU legislative acts can have access to those acts and, by 
implication, be aware of the rights and obligations which they derive from those 
instruments in their language. It is difficult to conceive of the addressees of EU 
provisions being required to know all the official EU languages in order to be able 
to effectively consult all the official versions of an EU legislative act. 
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19 The referring court states that in the present case there is a significant difference 
from the case-law referred to in paragraph 17 above. That difference concerns the 
existence of a translation error capable of substantially altering the content of the 
EU text in its original Romanian language version, and the active conduct of the 
authority based on the initial Romanian language version, differences which also 
call into question the need to comply with the principles of the protection of 
legitimate expectations and legal certainty when analysing the lawfulness of the 
decision to recover State aid. Furthermore, unlike the situation in the case which 
gave rise to the judgment of 11 December 2007, Skoma-Lux, C-161/06, 
Regulation No 651/2014 was published in Romanian and it remains to be clarified 
whether the addressee of the provision, the content of which was unambiguous, 
was also required to verify all the other language versions until the correcting 
regulation, Regulation 2021/452, was adopted. 
20 The referring court also points out that the text in the original Romanian version 
was not ambiguous and clearly required the criteria relating to the identification of 
undertakings in difficulty to apply solely to undertakings which had been 
established for less than three years, and that was what the authority also achieved 
through the approval of the financing and the conclusion of the financing contract; 
in such circumstances, it is even more difficult for the addressee of an EU 
provision to also verify the other language versions before submitting an 
application for the award of State aid. In that regard, the referring court asks 
whether the obligation imposed on the addressees of EU provisions to also verify 
the other language versions, including in a context such as that of the present case, 
is not such as to deprive the content of the EU provision itself of predictability, by 
reducing the legal certainty and security that the adoption of an EU regulation 
should create. 
21 As regards the principles of the protection of legitimate expectations and legal 
certainty, after referring to paragraphs 31 to 33 of the judgment of 26 April 2005, 
‘Goed Wonen’ (C-376/02), and to paragraph 213 of the judgment of 22 April 
2016, Ireland v Commission, T-50/06 RENV II and T-69/06 RENV II, the 
referring court states that the situation at issue in the present case differs from the 
situations in those cases. First, the legal act at issue is a directly applicable 
regulation, not a directive, so that the clarification of the effects produced by a 
regulation published in the Romanian language in a version containing a 
translation error, from the time of publication to the time of the adoption of a 
regulation correcting the Romanian language version, and the determination of the 
time from which the consequences of the publication of the correcting regulation 
arise, fall within the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice. Second, the initial text of 
the Romanian language version of the regulation was unambiguous and the 
national authorities adopted legislative acts reproducing the content of that 
regulation and developed an application which allowed applications to be filed 
online and certified that the conditions for the award of aid were satisfied. 
22 The situation in the present case is also different from that in the case which gave 
rise to the judgment of 5 March 2019, Eesti Pagar, C-349/17. In the present case 
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there is a specific provision of EU law that is directly applicable which, however, 
in the version translated into the Romanian language, contains a fundamental 
translation error. That error is such as to result in the application of the criteria 
concerning undertakings in difficulty to companies other than those for which 
those criteria were intended, and the conduct of both the national authority and the 
beneficiary of the State aid were based on the Romanian language version of the 
text. 
23 In the light of the Court of Justice’s findings in paragraphs 104 and 105 of that 
judgment, it is necessary to determine whether the beneficiary may rely on a 
legitimate expectation that the conditions relating to the grant of the aid have been 
met and whether it may rely on that legitimate expectation against the authority 
which ordered the recovery of the aid after the publication of Regulation 
2021/452.