2.

If the answer to the first question is at least partly affirmative: (a) Does the failure, by an awarding authority entitled to aid from the ERDF, to observe one or more rules relating to public procurement for the choice of a service provider responsible for implementing the subsidised project constitute an irregularity within the meaning of Regulation No 2988/95 (3)? Does the fact that the competent national authority could not have been unaware, at the time when it decided to grant the aid applied for from the ERDF, that the recipient operator had failed to comply with the public procurement rules in recruiting, before the aid had even been allocated, the provider responsible for implementing the project financed by the authority affect the characterisation as an irregularity within the meaning of Regulation No 2988/95? (b) In case of an affirmative answer to question 2(a), and, given that, as the Court of Justice held in Joined Cases C-278/07 to C-280/07 Hauptzollamt Hamburg-Jonas v Josef Vosding Schlacht, Kûhl- und Zerlegebetrieb GmbH & Co [2009] ECR I-457, the limitation period referred to in Article 3 of Regulation No 2988/95 is applicable to administrative measures such as the recovery of aid wrongly received by an operator as a result of irregularities it committed: — Should the starting point for the limitation period be set at the date of payment of the aid to the recipient or at that of the recipient’s use of the subsidy received to pay the provider recruited in disregard of one or more of the public procurement rules? — Should that period be regarded as interrupted by the transmission, by the competent national authority to the recipient of the subsidy, of an auditor’s report finding that there was a failure to comply with the public procurement rules and recommending, as a result, that the national authority obtain repayment of the sums paid? — When a Member State makes use of the possibility afforded by Article 3(3) of Regulation No 2988/95 to apply a longer limitation period for proceedings, in particular where, in France, the ordinary limitation period at the time of the facts at issue is applicable, as set out at Article 2262 of the Code Civil which provides that ‘All actions, both in rem and in personam, are time-barred after 30 years …’, must the compatibility of such a limitation period with Community law, in particular with the principle of proportionality, be determined in the light of the maximum limitation period for proceedings according to the national legislation providing the legal basis for the national administration’s demand for recovery or in the light of the period in fact applied in the particular case? (c) In case of a negative answer to question 2(a), with regard to payment of aid such as that at issue in the main proceedings, do the financial interests of the Community prevent the judge from applying the national rules relating to the withdrawal of decisions creating rights, according to which, except in cases of non-existence, acquisition by fraud or the recipient’s request, the administration may withdraw an individual decision creating rights, if it is illegal, only within a period of four months following the date that decision was taken, an administrative decision being nonetheless capable, in particular when it concerns payment of aid, of being coupled with conditions subsequent, the fulfilment of which allows the withdrawal of the aid in question without any limitation condition — the Conseil d’État having held that that national rule must be interpreted to the effect that it could not be relied on by the recipient of an aid wrongly attributed in application of Community legislation unless it was in good faith?