31.10.2022
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
C 418/39
— 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.
— 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.
— 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.
— 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.
— 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)
— 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.
— III.5.
Unjustified rejection of the risk assessment based on an extrapolation of the results of the 2018 checks.
— 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.
— 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.
— 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.