Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Appeals – Pleas in law – Need to state precisely the contested elements of the General Court’s reasoning

(Art. 225 EC, Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51, first para.; Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Art. 112(1)(c))

2. State aid – Examination by the Commission – Compatibility of the aid with the common market – Incompatibility of aid infringing the general principles of Community law

(Art. 88 EC)

3. State aid – Commission decision not to raise objections to an aid scheme – Protection of legitimate expectations

(Art. 87(1) and (3), EC and 88(3) EC)

4. State aid – Commission decision not to raise objections to an aid scheme – Limitation of the temporal effects of the decision

(Art. 87(1) and (3), EC and 88(3) EC)

Summary

1. An appeal must state precisely the contested elements of the judgment which the appellant seeks to have set aside and also the legal arguments specifically advanced in support of the appeal, failing which the appeal or plea concerned is inadmissible.

An appeal in which the line of argument put forward by the appellant appears overall to be sufficiently clear for the purposes of identifying with the necessary precision the elements of the judgment under appeal which are being challenged, and the legal arguments relied on in support of that challenge, and thus enables the Court to carry out its review of the lawfulness thereof, is admissible, even though certain portions of that line of argument may lack rigour.

(see paras 48-49)

2. State aid which, in some of its detailed rules, infringes the general principles of European Union law, such as the principles of legal certainty, the protection of legitimate expectations and equal treatment, may not be declared compatible with the common market by the Commission.

(see para. 65)

3. The right to rely on the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations extends to any person in a situation in which an institution of the Union has caused him to entertain justified expectations. In the absence of an overriding public interest, the Commission infringes a superior rule of law if it fails to couple the repeal of a set of rules with transitional measures for the protection of the expectations which a prudent and alert trader might legitimately have derived from the European Union rules. However, a person may not plead infringement of the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations unless he has been given precise assurances by that institution. Similarly, if a prudent and alert trader could have foreseen the adoption of a measure likely to affect his interests, he cannot plead that principle when the measure is adopted.

In the field of State aid, as regards a Commission decision not to raise objections to an aid scheme until the end of a specific period, a prudent and alert trader, who is supposed to be familiar with that decision, can infer from the statement concerning ‘Duration’ in the decision that the possibility of participating in a subsidy allocation procedure is limited by the duration of the authorisation granted for that scheme.

Given that the Commission, in authorising an aid scheme, derogates from the general principle of incompatibility of State aid with the common market as laid down in Article 87(3) EC, a prudent and alert trader cannot reasonably expect that that decision authorises the grant of aid even after the date indicated therein, contrary to the principle that such exceptions are to be strictly interpreted.

(see paras 69, 71-74)

4. The principle of equal treatment precludes, in particular, comparable situations from being treated differently, unless such treatment is objectively justified.

A decision by the Commission not to raise objections to a State aid scheme under Article 87(3) EC constitutes a derogation from the general rule that such aid is incompatible with the common market. Consequently, the duration of its validity must be limited in time. Moreover, any authorisation of limited duration by definition gives rise to unequal treatment according to whether a given situation does or does not come within the temporal scope of that authorisation decision.

In that regard, unequal treatment as between undertakings that have had the opportunity to participate in a subsidy allocation procedure before the expiry of the authorisation granted by the decision and those that no longer have that opportunity is objectively justified.

(see paras 78-80)