Case T-93/02

Confédération nationale du Crédit mutuel

v

Commission of the European Communities

(State aid – Measures taken by the French Republic for Crédit mutuel – Livret bleu – Decision 2003/216/EC – Duty to state reasons – Action for annulment)

Judgment of the Court of First Instance (Second Chamber, Extended Composition), 18 January 2005

Summary of the Judgment

1. Acts of the Community institutions – Statement of reasons – Obligation – Scope – Commission decision on State aid – Judicial review

(Arts 87 EC and 253 EC)

2. Community law – Interpretation – Acts of the Community institutions – Statement of reasons – Taking into consideration

3. State aid – Definition – Renunciation of tax revenue by a Member State – Renunciation leading to an indirect transfer of State resources to an undertaking distinct from the exonerated taxpayer – Included

(Art. 87(1) EC)

4. Commission – Principle of collegiality – Scope – Statement of reasons for decisions – Alteration after adoption – Unlawfulness – Consequence – Insufficiency in reasoning cannot be made good by explanations before the Court

(Art. 253 EC)

1. The obligation to state reasons is an essential procedural requirement, as distinct from the question whether the reasons given are correct, which goes to the substantive legality of the contested measure. The statement of reasons required by Article 253 EC must be appropriate to the act at issue and must disclose in a clear and unequivocal fashion the reasoning followed by the institution which adopted the measure in question in such a way as to enable the persons concerned to ascertain the reasons for the measure and to enable the competent court to exercise its power of review. The requirements of a statement of reasons must be appraised by reference to the circumstances of each case, in particular the content of the measure in question, the nature of the reasons given and the interest which the addressees of the measure, or other parties to whom it is of direct and individual concern, may have in obtaining explanations. It is not necessary for the reasoning to go into all the relevant facts and points of law, since the question whether the statement of reasons meets the requirements of Article 253 EC must be assessed with regard not only to its wording but also to its context and to all the legal rules governing the matter in question.

As to the point whether a decision is sufficiently reasoned with regard to the identification of the aid held to be incompatible with the Treaty, it is therefore necessary to determine whether that decision enables the persons concerned to ascertain the State measure or measures held by the Commission to constitute aid and the Court to exercise its power of review over the assessment of those measures. On the other hand, it is not relevant to ask whether, for the purposes of examining the statement of reasons, the treatment of those measures as aid is justified.

(see paras 67-69)

2. The operative part of a measure is indissociably linked to the statement of reasons and, when it has to be interpreted, account must be taken of the reasons that led to its adoption.

(see para. 74)

3. It is not necessary, in order to found a finding of the existence of intervention by means of State resources in favour of an undertaking, that the undertaking must be the direct recipient. The fact that a Member State renounces tax revenue may, indeed, involve an indirect transfer of State resources, capable of being treated as aid to economic operators other than those to which the tax advantage is accorded directly.

(see para. 95)

4. The operative part and the statement of reasons of a decision – which must be reasoned under Article 253 EC – constitute an indivisible whole, with the result, if its adoption falls within the powers of the College of Commissioners, that it is for the latter alone, in accordance with the principle of collegiate responsibility, to adopt both the one and the other, since any alternation to the statement of reasons going beyond simple corrections of spelling or grammar is its exclusive province. It follows that the arguments presented by the Commission’s agents before the Court cannot make good the insufficiency of the contested decision’s reasoning.

(see paras 124, 126)