Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2000:28
Date: 2000-02-03
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Fourth Chamber
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Economic, social and territorial cohesion;European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)
Concepts: Statement of reasons;Admissibility and examination of applications, forms of order sought and pleas in law;Structural funds
Procedure: Action for annulment - unfounded;Action for annulment - decision unnecessary;Action for annulment - successful
Origin: France

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Procedure — Decision replacing, during the proceedings, the contested decision — 
New factor — Extension of the initial claims for relief and pleadings 
2. Acts of the institutions — Statement of reasons — Obligation — Scope — Commis­
sion decision reducing the amount of assistance from the European Regional 
Development Fund 
(EC Treaty, Art. 190 (now Art. 253 EC» 
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SUMMARY — JOINED CASES T-46/98 AND T-151/98 
3. Economic and social cohesion — European Regional Development Fund — Grant of 
Community financial assistance — Reduction of the amount of financial assistance 
approved in the initial budget — Breach of the principles of protection of legitimate 
expectations and legal certainty 
1. Where a decision is, during the pro­
ceedings, replaced by a decision with 
the same subject-matter, this must be 
considered a new factor allowing the 
applicant to adapt its pleas in law and 
claims for relief. It would not be in the 
interests of the due administration of 
justice and the requirements of proce­
dural economy to oblige the applicant 
to make a fresh application to the 
Court. Moreover, it would be inequi­
table if the Commission were able, in 
order to counter criticisms of a decision 
contained in an application to the 
Court, to amend the contested decision 
or to substitute another for it and to 
rely in the proceedings on such an 
amendment or substitution in order to 
deprive the other party of the oppor­
tunity of extending his original plead­
ings to the later decision or of submit­
ting supplementary pleadings directed 
against that decision. 
(see para. 33) 
2. The purpose of the obligation to state 
the reasons on which an individual 
decision is based is to enable the 
Community judicature to review the 
legality of the decision and to provide 
the person concerned with sufficient 
information to make it possible to 
ascertain whether the decision is well 
founded or whether it is vitiated by a 
defect which may permit its legality to 
be contested. The extent of that obliga­
tion depends on the nature of the 
measure in question and on the context 
in which it was adopted. It follows that 
the statement of reasons must in prin­
ciple be notified to the person con­
cerned at the same time as the decision 
adversely affecting him and that a 
failure to state the reasons cannot be 
remedied by the fact that the person 
concerned learns of the reasons for the 
decision during the proceedings before 
the Court. 
Where a decision reduces the amount 
of assistance from the European Re­
gional Development Fund, in view in 
particular of the fact that such a 
decision has serious consequences for 
the person benefiting from the assis­
tance, that decision must clearly show 
the grounds which justify a reduction 
of the amount of the assistance initially 
authorised. 
(see paras 46-49) 
3. Grant of financial assistance is subject 
not only to compliance with the con­
ditions laid down by the Commission 
in the decision granting assistance but 
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CEMR V COMMISSION 
also to compliance with the terms of 
the application for assistance in respect 
of which that decision was given. 
If, when it applied for financial assis­
tance from the European Regional 
Development Fund, the applicant has 
submitted to the Commission a pro­
gramme of work together with the 
planned budget, which has been 
accepted by the Commission, the Com­
mission may not, without infringing 
the principles of the protection of 
legitimate expectations and legal cer­
tainty, consider an action provided for 
in the initial budget ineligible and 
consequently reduce financial assis­
tance as regards that amount. 
(see paras 68, 71-72) 
II - 169