Case C-175/03: Action brought on 14 April 2003 by the Hellenic Republic against the Commission of the European Communities
Date: 2003-07-19
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: EAGGF Guarantee Section, EU control, European Commission, Greece, action for annulment (EU), financial control, infringement of EU law

19.7.2003

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 171/9

ORDER OF THE COURT

(Fourth Chamber)

of 26 March 2003

in Case C-170/01 P: Compañía Internacional de Pesca y
Derivados SA (INPESCA) v Commission of the European
Communities (1)

(Appeal — Action for annulment — Action for damages —
Confirmatory measure — Absence of substantive new facts
— Inadmissible — Appeal manifestly unfounded)

(2003/C 171/12)

(Language of the case: Spanish)

2003 by the Commission of the European Communities,
represented by B. Stromsky and R. Amorosi, acting as Agents.

The applicant claims that the Court should:

1.

declare that, by failing to adopt and bring into force
within the prescribed period the laws, regulations and
administrative provisions necessary to comply with
Directive 2000/70/EC of the European Parliament and of
the Council of 16 November 2000 amending Council
Directive 93/42/EEC as regards medical devices incorpor-
ating stable derivates of human blood or human plas-
ma (1) and, in any event, by failing to communicate them
to the Commission, the French Republic has failed to
fulfil its obligations under that directive;

2.

order the French Republic to pay the costs.

(Provisional translation; the definitive translation will be published
in the European Court Reports)

Pleas in law and main arguments

In Case C-170/01 P: Compañía Internacional de Pesca y
Derivados SA (INPESCA), established in Bermeo (Spain),
(lawyers: M.I. Angulo Fuertes and M.B. Angulo Fuerte) —
appeal against the judgment of the Court of First Instance of
the European Communities (Second Chamber) in Case T-186/
98 Inpesca v Commssion [2001] ECR II-557, seeking to have
that judgment set aside, the other party to proceedings being:
Commission of the European Communities (agents: S. Pardo
Quintillán and J. Guerra Fernández) — the Court (Fourth
Chamber), composed of C.W.A. Timmermans, President of the
Chamber, A. La Pergola (rapporteur) and S. Von Bahr, Judges;
L.A. Geelhoed, Advocate General; R. Grass, Registrar; has made
an order on 26 February 2003 by which it:

1. Dismisses the appeal;

Article 2 of Directive 2000/70/EC provides that Member
States are to adopt and publish the laws, regulations and
administrative provisions necessary to comply with that
directive before 13 December 2001 and that they are immedi-
ately to inform the Commission thereof. The Commission has
no information to enable it to conclude that the French
authorities have definitively adopted the necessary measures
to implement the directive or, in any event, communicated
such measures to it and thus finds that the French Republic
has failed to fulfil its obligations under that directive. The
Commission further submits that the French Republic cannot
rely on the amendment made to Directive 2000/70/EC in
order to justify its failure to transpose it within the prescribed
period since the amendment did not affect the deadline for
transposition.

2. Orders Compañía Internacional de Pesca y Derivados SA

(INPESCA) to pay the costs.

(1) OJ 2000 L 313, p. 22.

( 1) OJ C 200, 14.7.2001.

Action brought on 14 April 2003 by the Hellenic Republic
against the Commission of the European Communities

Action brought on 3 April 2003 by the Commission of
the European Communities against the French Republic

(Case C-155/03)

(2003/C 171/13)

(Case C-175/03)

(2003/C 171/14)

An action against the French Republic was brought before the
Court of Justice of the European Communities on 3 April

An action against the Commission of the European Communi-
ties was brought before the Court of Justice of the European
Communities on 14 April 2003 by the Hellenic Republic,

C 171/10

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

19.7.2003

represented by Vasilios Kontolaimos, State Legal Adviser, and
Stiliani Kharitaki, Member of the State Legal Service, with an
address for service in Luxembourg at the Greek Embassy, 27
rue Marie-Adélaïde.

The applicant claims that the Court should:

annul, or otherwise amend, Commission Decision C(2003)
500 excluding from Community financing certain expenditure
incurred by the Member States under the Guarantee Section of
the EAGGF, in respect of the chapter thereof which concerns
financial corrections to the detriment of the Hellenic Republic.
Otherwise, and entirely in the alternative, the correction
imposed must be restricted: (a) solely to the area of the island
of Lesvos or in the alternative of the island of Rhodes; (b) to
expenditure incurred up until 16 February 2001 at the latest;
and (c) to a maximum rate of 2 %.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The contested decision adopted by the Commission should be
annulled for the following reasons.

(a)

(b)

(c)

It misinterpreted and misapplied Article 11 of Regulation
No 2019/93, Articles 1, 2, 3 and 4 of Regulation
No 2837/93, Article 5(2)(c) of Regulation No 729/70 as
amended by Regulation No 1287/98, and Article 7(4) of
Regulation No 1258/99.

In the alternative — assuming that the Commission’s
interpretation of the provisions of Regulations No 2019/
93 and No 2837/93 is correct — given the manifest lack
of clarity of the regulations and in accordance with
the guidelines, any misapplication of the Community
provisions connected with that interpretation that may
have occurred should not be regarded as proving the
existence of all the imputed deficiencies of the system or
be taken into account when forming the final decision
regarding the need for imposition of a general correction
and indeed of such a high rate.

The Commission misappraised the facts established in
the course of the check and found without sufficient
reasoning that there were fundamental deficiencies of
a general nature entailing a particularly high risk of
Community resources being lost, having first extrapolated
the findings (which related to the two islands which were
checked) in an impermissible manner so as to cover all
the islands of the Aegean. It thereby ignored the special
features which each island displays and vary in accordance
with location, size, population, land morphology, poten-
tial for production, infrastructure and so forth — special
features which are acknowledged by the very regulations
that are applicable in respect of the islands of the Aegean.

(d) The Commission exceeded the limits of its discretion and
infringed the principle of proportionality since it imposed
such a high correction rate on all the islands of the
Aegean, ignoring the limited risk of loss for the Fund, the
fact that the check was being carried out for the first time,
the fact that the Greek authorities complied immediately
with the recommendations of its staff, and the magnitude
of the consequences — financial and environmental —
which are inversely proportional to the population of
each island and may be catastrophic for the smaller
islands (given that preservation of their olive groves and
their survival are dependent upon the grant of aid).

Appeal brought on 25 April 2003 by Zisis Drouvis against
the judgment delivered on 26 February 2003 by the
Fourth Chamber of the Court of First Instance of the
European Communities in Case T-184/00 between Zisis
Drouvis and the Commission, supported by the Council

(Case C-187/03 P)

(2003/C 171/15)

An appeal against the judgment delivered on 26 February
2003 by the Fourth Chamber of the Court of First Instance of
the European Communities in Case T-184/00 between Zisis
Drouvis and the Commission, supported by the Council as
intervener, was brought before the Court of Justice of the
European Communities on 25 April 2003 by Zisis Drouvis,
represented by Ioannis Stamouolis, of the Athens Bar.

The appellant claims that the Court should:

— find the appeal lawful and well founded;

— set aside the judgment under appeal delivered by the
Court of First Instance on 26 February 2003 in Case
T-184/00;

— order the defendant to pay the costs.

Grounds of appeal

First ground:

interpretation

Erroneous
and
application of Article 6(2) ΕU,
Article 14 of the European Con-
vention on Human Rights and
Article 1 of the First Protocol to
that Convention.