Case T-26/16: Action brought on 22 January 2016 — Greece v Commission
Date: 2016-01-22
Institutions: General Court
Subjects: EAFRD, EAGF, agricultural expenditure, aid to agriculture, principle of proportionality, single payment scheme








C_2016111EN.01002902.xml










29.3.2016   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 111/29





Action brought on 22 January 2016 — Greece v Commission
(Case T-26/16)
(2016/C 111/35)
Language of the case: Greek

Parties


Applicant: Hellenic Republic (represented by: G. Kanellopoulos, O. Tsirkinidou and A.-E.Vasilopoulou)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the General Court should:






—


annul the contested Commission implementing decision of 13 November 2015 excluding from European Union financing certain expenditure incurred by the Member States under the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and under the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), notified under document C(2015) 7716 and published in the Official Journal of the EU on 20 November 2015 at OJ L 303, p. 35, as regards the parts thereof by which, following investigations IR/2009/004/GR and IR/2009/0017/GR, one-off and flat-rate financial corrections totalling EUR 11 534 827,97 were imposed on the Hellenic Republic for delays in recovery procedures, non-reporting and weaknesses generally in the debt management procedures, by the list in the annexes thereto;










—


order the Commission to pay the costs.





Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on five pleas in law.
More specifically, the Hellenic Republic puts forward four pleas in respect of the flat-rate financial correction of 10 % which is imposed for the 2011 financial year.






1.


The first plea is derived from the lack of a legal basis for imposing a flat-rate financial correction.










2.


By the second plea, regarding the supposed delays in the recovery procedure, it is submitted that the imposition of corrections in 2015 for weaknesses in the control system, which relate to cases even before 2000 — following findings which were surmised for the first time in 2011, in breach of the rights of defence of the Greek authorities, upon which the Commission placed a disproportionate burden — infringes the general principle of legal certainty and that the European Union should act timeously and in any event within a reasonable period.










3.


By the third plea, regarding the supposed failures in the procedure of recovery by offsetting, it is submitted that the Commission decision lacks entirely a sufficient and definite statement of reasons and in any event was adopted with a clear error of assessment on its part.










4.


By the fourth plea, regarding what the Commission considers to be the incorrect calculation of the interest paid under the 50/50 rule in Article 32(5) of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005, (1) and the consequent failure to refer thereto in the table under Annex III, it is submitted that the Commission misinterpreted and misapplied Article 32(1) and (5) of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005.




Furthermore, in respect of the remaining contested parts of the Commission implementing decision, concerning the imposition of one-off corrections in individual instances of cases that were checked, the fifth plea is put forward, which, after the necessary preliminary observations on all the cases, refers separately to each of the corrections imposed, relying on infringement of Article 32 of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005, indefiniteness, a complete lack of a sufficient and definite statement of reasons, clear and manifold error of assessment on the part of the Commission, infringement of the principles of good administration and proportionality, and the exceeding by the Commission of the limits of its discretion when charging the amounts at issue to the Hellenic Republic.


(1)  Council Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005 of 21 June 2005 on the financing of the common agricultural policy (OJ 2005 L 209, p. 1).