Case C-297/25 P: Appeal brought on 22 April 2025 by the Republic of Poland against the judgment of the General Court delivered on 5 February 2025 in Case T-1033/23, Republic of Poland v European Commission
Date: 2025-04-22
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: claim, periodic penalty payment, principle of proportionality, sanction (EU)








C_202503507EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2025/3507


7.7.2025






Appeal brought on 22 April 2025 by the Republic of Poland against the judgment of the General Court delivered on 5 February 2025 in Case T-1033/23, Republic of Poland v European Commission


(Case C-297/25 P)

(C/2025/3507)
Language of the case: Polish

Parties


Appellant: Republic of Poland (represented by: B. Majczyna, Agent)

Other party to the proceedings: European Commission

Form of order sought

The appellant claims that the Court should:






—


set aside in its entirety the judgment of the General Court of 5 February 2025 in Poland v Commission (T-1033/23, EU:T:2025:129);










—


annul in part two decisions of the European Commission dated 4 August and one dated 9 August 2023 to recover by way of offsetting the amounts payable in respect of the daily periodic penalty payment imposed by the Vice-President of the Court of Justice in the order of 27 October 2021, Commission v Poland (C 204/21 R, EU:C:2021:878), to the extent of 50 % of the amounts stated in those recovery decisions for the totality of the period from 29 October 2022 to 20 April 2023; and










—


order the European Commission to pay the costs of the proceedings at both instances;




in the alternative:






—


set aside the judgment in part, in so far as (a) in part 1 of the operative part of that judgment the General Court dismissed the claim put forward in the alternative, seeking the partial annulment of the abovementioned contested decision with respect to 50 % of the amounts offset for the totality of the period from 29 October 2022 to 20 April 2023 and (b) in part 2 of the operative part of the judgment the General Court ordered the appellant exclusively to pay the cost of the proceedings;










—


annul the contested decisions in part and order the European Commission to pay half of the costs of the proceedings at both instances;




in the further alternative:






—


set aside the judgment in its entirety or in part (as set out in the above heads of claim), refer the case back to the General Court for reconsideration and reserve the costs until the decision closing the proceedings.





Grounds of appeal and main arguments

The appellant relies on three grounds in support of its appeal:






1.


A ground alleging infringement of Article 279 TFEU in so far as: (a) the General Court breached the principles of proportionality and equivalence, thus finding that a penalty of the same amount is proportionate irrespective of whether the failure to implement concerns all interim measures or half of them, (b) the General Court erroneously reconstituted the character of the interim measures ordered against Poland, thus finding that those measures had to be enforced despite the fact that the basis for adopting them had ceased to exist, giving them the character of measures that do not exist under EU law, (c) the General Court erroneously reconstituted the effect of the interim measures ordered against Poland by linking the ex nunc effect of the order imposing those interim measures to their temporal scope, and as a result erroneously holding that the order of 27 October 2021 was binding as to the amount of the periodic penalty payment imposed by it notwithstanding the fact that a significant change in the circumstances forming the basis for its imposition had occurred (that is to say, erroneously holding that the amount of the penalty payment to be charged or offset by the Commission for the period prior to the date of delivery of the order of the Vice-President of the Court of Justice of 21 April 2023 in Commission v Poland (C 204/21 R-RAP, EU:C:2023:334), could in no case be less than that set out in the order of 27 October 2021), (d) the General Court erroneously reconstituted the role of the Commission in the enforcement of the penalty payment ordered by way of the interim measure, leading to the General Court denying the Commission’s obligation to monitor whether that interim measure had been enforced and the degree of enforcement and halt enforcement of the penalty in the event of a finding that the obligations guaranteed by that penalty had been met;










2.


A ground alleging that the General Court committed a breach of the principle nulla poena sine culpa, leading to that Court finding that the penalty payment imposed on account of a failure to take certain measures may be found to be payable and may be enforced even in the period after those measures were taken;










3.


A ground alleging that the General Court infringed Articles 101 and 102 of Regulation 2018/1046, (1) read in conjunction with Article 98 thereof, by finding that the Commission was entitled to apply the procedure for recovery of the entirety of the amounts receivable set out in the contested decisions, and to do so by way of offsetting, despite the fact that the order of 27 October 2021 imposed a daily penalty payment until such time as order of the Vice-President of the Court of Justice of 14 July 2021, delivered in the Commission v Poland (C 204/21 R, EU:C:2021:593) had been complied with, while from 15 July 2022, a part (half) of the regulations whose suspension of application was required by the order of 14 July 2021 ceased to be applied.






(1)  Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 July 2018 on the financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union, amending Regulations (EU) No 1296/2013, (EU) No 1301/2013, (EU) No 1303/2013, (EU) No 1304/2013, (EU) No 1309/2013, (EU) No 1316/2013, (EU) No 223/2014, (EU) No 283/2014, and Decision No 541/2014/EU and repealing Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 (OJ 2018 L 193, p. 1).


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/3507/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)