Case T-508/22: Action brought on 19 August 2022 — Spain v Commission
Date: 2022-08-19
Institutions: General Court
Subjects: Castile-Leon, EAFRD, EAGF, EU control, agricultural expenditure, aid to agriculture, audit, eligibility criteria, principle of proportionality








C_2022418EN.01003801.xml










31.10.2022   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 418/38






Action brought on 19 August 2022 — Spain v Commission
(Case T-508/22)
(2022/C 418/52)
Language of the case: Spanish

Parties


Applicant: Kingdom of Spain (represented by: I. Herranz Elizalde, acting as Agent)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:






(i)


annul Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2022/908 of 8 June 2022 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), (1) in so far as it concerns the Kingdom of Spain;










(ii)


in the alternative, annul the contested decision in part, reducing the estimated risk for the 2016 and 2017 financial years to EUR 3 241 314,99;










(iii)


in the further alternative, in accordance with the second plea in law, annul the contested decision in part, reducing the flat-rate correction for the 2016 and 2017 financial years from 5 % to 2 %;










(iv)


order the European Commission to pay the costs.





Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on two pleas in law.






1.


First plea in law, alleging improper application of the flat-rate correction.






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In that regard, the applicant claims that the contested decision breaches the principle of proportionality as regards financial corrections, by improperly applying a flat-rate correction, in breach of Article 52(2) of Regulation No 1306/2013, (2) and the right to good administration, in failing to examine with the requisite care the risk assessments submitted by the Spanish authorities. The first plea in law is in turn divided into the following parts, which, in the applicant’s submission, demonstrate, taken both in isolation and together, that the financial correction applied is disproportionate.










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III.1.


Error of assessment in concluding that there is a serious and reasonable doubt as to the extent of the checks in respect of statutory management requirement 1 (‘SMR 1’).














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The Commission erred (i) because it failed to take into account that, in the field checks, the inspectors checked the requirement relating to the measurement of the storage facilities for livestock manure and the review of the records; (ii) because, in the audit, there was no on-the-spot measurement or check such as to demonstrate any irregularities on the part of the beneficiaries or any errors that the inspectors may have committed in carrying out the checks; (iii) in regarding as a deficiency in the extent and quality of the checks in respect of SMR 1 what could only have been classified, where appropriate, as a deficiency in the key control ‘Communication of the results’, which the Commission already specifically evaluated in the composite report.










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III. 2.


Error of assessment in considering that there is a serious and reasonable doubt as to the extent of the checks in respect of statutory management requirement 3 (‘SMR 3’).














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The Commission committed a two-fold error in its assessment in respect of SMR 3: (i) It assumed, without the on-the-spot checks carried out in the audit providing any factual basis to that effect, that, in the farm parcels included in the check sample, there were wild plant species in respect of which it would have been necessary to adopt conservation plans; (ii) It required that the farmers comply directly with Annex II to the directive, without there being any plans determining in advance the conservation measures that, as the case may be, would be necessary; (iii) It considered that it would have been possible to impose sanctions on the farmers for the presumed direct failure to comply with the directive, and that the absence of sanctions would have caused financial damage to the European Union.










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III. 3.


Error of assessment and lack of proportionality in concluding that the checks as regards identification in respect of statutory management requirements 7 and 8 (‘SMR 7’ and ‘SMR 8’) suffer from systemic deficiencies.














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As regards the identification (SMR 7 and SMR 8), the Commission erred: (i) in failing to take account of the principle of proportionality of sanctions by considering that the authorities of Castilla y León (Castile and Leon) should have imposed sanctions on the farmers where animals had only a single ear tag (as opposed to the two required by the rules), regardless of the number of ear tags missing; (ii) in considering that the application of a fundamental principle of EU law such as the principle of the proportionality of sanctions depends on implementation on the part of the national authorities; (iii) in failing to take into account that the Spanish authorities, in the inspections, carried out checks the result of which was at least equivalent to that from applying a tolerance margin of 20 % of ear tags — a margin which the Commission accepts for other Member States.










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As regards the registration (SMR 7 and SMR 8), the Commission erred: (i) in according disproportionate importance to the deficiency, even though it was able to repeat the checks and ascertain the number of animas present in the farms by consulting the Base de Datos de Ganado Nacional (Spanish national livestock database, or BDGN); (ii) in failing to take into account that, despite the presumed deficiencies in the check, the audit did not reveal cases in which the farmer had committed infringements liable to be subject to sanctions, with the result that there could be no damage to the financial interests of the European Union.










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III. 4.


Error of assessment as well as according disproportionate importance to a possible element of the general requirement laid down in Article 72[(1)](b)(ii) of Regulation (EU) No 809/2014. (3)















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The Commission erred for the following reasons: (i) The signature of the beneficiary is not a condition under Article 72(1)(a) of Commission Implementing Regulation 809/2014; (ii) The list of parcels was already included in the documents concerning the check as regards admissibility; that check was carried out simultaneously, with the result that there was no financial risk to the budget of the European Union. Moreover, that aspect is not a requirement that is expressly laid down in the abovementioned Commission implementing regulation. (iii) The absence of details about the landscape features was already uploaded to the tablet PC prior to the checks, and the Commission does not show that the omission of features which were not subject to any changes entails a higher risk of infringements being committed, or of infringements not being detected.










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III.5.


Unjustified rejection of the risk assessment based on an extrapolation of the results of the 2018 checks.














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The Commission erred in rejecting ab initio the calculation of the risk based on an extrapolation of the checks carried out in 2018, in (i) denying the reliability of the risk calculation method; (ii) stating that the risk calculation was not based on a representative sample of the population at risk, and (iii) stating that it is not possible to repeat the checks.










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III.6.


Claims concerning the lack of proportionality of the assessment of the risk to the budget of the European Union by means of a flat-rate estimate, instead of making extrapolations that were more in line with the actual nature of the identified risks.














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The Commission erred: (i) in failing to take account of the exceptional nature of flat-rate corrections; (ii) in stating that the flat-rate correction is a (precise and exhaustive) calculation of the risk to the Funds, not comparable to the extrapolation proposed in the present case; (iii) in having exaggerated the financial consequences of the deficiencies in the control systems; (iv) in having generalised the results of isolated checks and presented them as deficiencies allegedly affecting the entire population of beneficiaries, thus imposing a flat-rate financial correction.














2.


Second plea in law, alleging, in the alternative, a breach of the principle of proportionality set out in Article 12(8) of Delegated Regulation 907/2014, (4) inasmuch as the flat-rate correction was not reduced.






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In that regard, the applicant claims that the Commission failed to take into account that the three risk extrapolations presented by the Spanish authorities and the fact that all of the deficiencies corresponded to certain population groups demonstrated that the flat-rate correction was disproportionate. Moreover, the Commission erred in failing to apply the reduction provided for in Article 12(8) of Delegated Regulation 907/2014.










(1)  OJ 2022 L 157, p. 15.

(2)  OJ 2013 L 347, p. 549.

(3)  OJ 2014 L 227, p. 69.

(4)  OJ 2014 L 255, p. 18.