Case T-564/23: Action brought on 13 September 2023 — Lithuania v Commission
Date: 2023-09-13
Institutions: General Court
Subjects: agricultural expenditure, aid to agriculture, eligibility criteria, fund (EU), infringement of EU law, livestock farming, principle of proportionality








C_202300664EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
Series C













C/2023/664


13.11.2023





Action brought on 13 September 2023 — Lithuania v Commission
(Case T-564/23)
(C/2023/664)
Language of the case: Lithuanian

Parties


Applicant: Republic of Lithuania, represented by E. Kurelaitytė, V. Kazlauskaitė-Švenčionienė and K. Dieninis

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the General Court should:






—


annul the contested decision (1) in so far as it is addressed to the Republic of Lithuania and provides for the payment of:






—


a financial correction of EUR 7 585 566,41 by Lithuania in respect of expenditure linked to cross compliance,










—


a financial correction of EUR 5 545 968,12 by Lithuania in respect of expenditure linked to voluntary coupled support;














—


order the Commission to pay the costs of the proceedings.





Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of its action, the applicant relies on one plea in law: in adopting the contested decision, by which it imposed on Lithuania a financial correction of EUR 7 585 566,41 on the ground that the cross compliance did not meet the requirements of EU legislation and a financial correction of EUR 5 545 968,12 on the ground that the voluntary coupled support for livestock was not in compliance with the requirements of EU legislation, the European Commission infringed Article 12(8) of Regulation (EU) No 907/2014 (2) and failed to comply with the principle of proportionality and the duty to cooperate by reason of the fact that, in determining the scale of the non-compliance, the nature of the infringement and the financial damage caused to the European Union, it applied to Lithuania a flat-rate correction, even though the objective data provided by the Lithuanian authorities allowed a precise assessment to be made of the damage caused to the EU funds and made it possible to reduce that correction to the lowest flat rate, exceeding the maximum possible damage.
The Commission failed properly to assess the amount of damage caused to the EU funds, which had been established precisely by objective data provided by the Lithuanian authorities on the basis of an analysis of the verifications carried out in 2021, for which reason the level of the correction fixed for Lithuania failed to have regard for the scale of the non-compliance, the nature of the infringement and the financial harm caused to the European Union. Since the Commission did not cooperate and failed to take into account the information provided by the Lithuanian authorities, the assessment of the risk of loss to the EU budget was carried out in an inappropriate manner and the amount of the financial correction imposed on Lithuania is disproportionately large.


(1)  Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2023/1408 of 3 July 2023 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) (OJ 2023 L 170, p. 46).

(2)  Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 907/2014 of 11 March 2014 supplementing Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council with regard to paying agencies and other bodies, financial management, clearance of accounts, securities and use of euro (OJ 2014 L 255, p. 18).


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2023/664/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)