CELEX: C1997/166/34
Language: en
Date: 1997-05-31 00:00:00
Title: Action brought on 13 March 1997 by Martin Neumann and Irmgard Neumann-Schölles against the Commission of the European Communities (Case T-68/97)

31 . 5 . 97             EN                 Official Journal of the European Communities                                        No C 166/ 15
Instance of the European Communities on 10 March 1997                        cannot in any event qualify for a new aid scheme,
by Societe Generale, established in Paris, represented by                    having regard to the aid already received by it in the
Dominique Voillemot, of the Paris Bar, with an address for                   past,
service in Luxembourg at the Chambers of Carlos Zeyen,
67 Rue Ermesinde .                                                     — the Commission has infringed the provisions of
                                                                             Article 92 ( 3 ) (c ) of the EC Treaty and the Guidelines
The applicant claims that the Court should:                                  by authorizing emergency aid on terms which are
                                                                             contrary to those invariably imposed in respect of
                                                                             rescue aid, inasmuch as it:
— annul the decision of the Commission, published in
      the Official Journal of 24 December 1996, authorizing                  — does not consist of liquidity help in the form of
      the grant by the French authorities of emergency aid                       loan guarantees or repayable loans bearing normal
      to Credit Lyonnais,                                                        commercial interest rates,
— order the Commission to pay all of the costs and                           — is not restricted to the amount needed to keep
      expenses incurred in the course of the present                             Credit Lyonnais in business,
      proceedings.                                                           — is paid for a particularly lengthy and unjustified
                                                                                 period,
Pleas in law and main arguments adduced in support:
                                                                             — is not warranted on the grounds of serious social
                                                                                 difficulties .
The applicant, which is already challenging the decision of
the Commission of 26 July 1995 giving conditional
approval to the aid granted by France to Credit                        (') Case T-32/96 ( OJ No C 133 , 4 . 5 . 1996 , p. 31 ).
                                                                       (2 ) OJ No C 390 , 24 . 12 . 1996 , p. 7.
Lyonnais ( J ), is seeking, in the present case, annulment of
the Commission's decision to raise no objection to the
emergency aid granted in September 1996 (2). It maintains
that :
— the Commission has infringed the provisions of                       Action brought on 13 March 1997 by Martin Neumann
      Article 93 ( 3 ) of the EC Treaty and of its decision of         and Irmgard Neumann-Scholles against the Commission
      26 July 1995 by failing to declare illegal , on the                                of the European Communities
      ground of notification out of time, the emergency aid
                                                                                                   ( Case T-68/97)
      granted and, more particularly, the non-introduction
      of the operation by which EPFR was to invest FF                                                ( 97/C 166/34
      10 000 million in zero coupon bonds,
                                                                                        (Language of the case: German)
— the Commission has infringed the provisions of
      Article 92 ( 3 ) of the EC Treaty, of the ' Community           An action against the Commission of the European
     guidelines on State aid for rescuing and restructuring            Communities was brought before the Court of First
      firms in difficulty' ('the Guidelines') issued for the          Instance of the European Communities on 13 March 1997
      implementation thereof and of its decision of 26 July            by Martin Neumann and Irmgard Neumann-Scholles,
      1995 , by authorizing the grant of additional aid to            resident in Karlsruhe, Germany, represented by Bernd
      Credit Lyonnais which aggravates the incompatibility            Potthast and Hans-Josef Ruber, Rechtsanwalte, Cologne,
     with the common market of the aid authorized on                  with an address for service in Luxembourg at the
      26 July 1995 . The emergency aid authorized:                     Chambers of Ernest Arendt, 8—10 Rue Mathias Hardt.
     — does not contribute to the development of any                  The applicants claim that the Court should :
           sector of activity,
                                                                      — order the Commission to pay the first applicant,
     — does       not     take   the  common      interest  into            Martin Neumann, an orphan's pension pursuant to
          consideration,                                                    Article 80 of the Staff Regulations;
     — reinforces the significance of the aid authorized on           — order the Commission to pay the costs .
          26 July 1995 , the amount of which and the need
           for which are questionable, and which was                  Pleas in law and main arguments adduced in support:
          granted, moreover, in the absence of any real
          restructuring plan or adequate countermeasures to           The second applicant, an official at the European Institute
          remedy the serious distortion of competition                for Transuranium Elements in Karlsruhe whose second
          resulting therefrom,                                        marriage was to a Commission official who died in 1992,
                                                                      applied for a survivor's pension for both herself and her
— the Commission has infringed the provisions of                      son from her first marriage, the first applicant. The first
     Article 92 ( 3 ) (c ) of the EC Treaty and the Guidelines        applicant lived in the household of Mr and Mrs Scholles
      by authorizing emergency aid allowing Credit                    between 1982 and 1990 and was maintained by them
      Lyonnais to continue its activities whilst awaiting the         jointly, as he was during his studies which were completed
     grant of fresh aid, notwithstandig that Credit Lyonnais          in 1995 . The natural father of the first applicant and
 ---pagebreak--- No C 166/16          EN                  Official Journal of the European Communities                                     31 . 5 . 97
divorced husband of the second applicant never paid                 — order the Commission to pay the costs .
maintenance to the first applicant and he died without
means in 1996 .
                                                                    Pleas in law and main arguments adduced in support:
By a letter of 22 June 1995 , the appointing authority
refused, by reference to Article 17 of Annex VIII to the            The contested decisions relate to the          final   decisions
Staff Regulations, to pay a widow 's pension to the second          approving the final payment claim relating to the
applicant, since the marriage to her second husband had             applications Nos 88131 1P1 and 880249P3 for financial
lasted less than a year and none of the exceptions in the           assistance from the European Social Fund submitted by
second paragraph of Article 17 applied. By a letter of              the applicant. By means of those decisions, the
20 March 1996, payment of an orphan 's pension to the               Commission decided to reduce the amount approved by
first applicant was finally also refused, because the               way of decision No C(88 ) 0831 /29.04.88 relating to the
conditions in Article 80 of the Staff Regulations were not          grant to the now applicant of assistance to finance
satisfied .                                                         vocational training operations in Portugal .
In the application, the claim of the first applicant to an          The application is based on the following allegations:
orphan 's pension is founded, first, on the first paragraph
of Article 80 of the Staff Regulations, the argument
essentially being that the term ' orphans' pension' is used         — the      decisions  of  the    Commission      are   unlawful
in that paragraph simply because, on the death of an                    inasmuch as they are contrary to Community law, in
official, sums of money are paid to a child actually                    particular Council Decision 83/516/EEC of 17 October
maintained by that official . It is not orphans but                     1983 on the tasks of the ESF, Council Regulation
dependent children who thereby receive an orphan's                      ( EEC ) No 2950/83 of 17 October 1983 on the
pension .                                                               implementation of that decision and Commission
                                                                        Decision 83/673/EEC on the management of the ESF,
Secondly, the second, third and fourth paragraphs of
Article 80 of the Staff Regulations show that it is not             — the decisions are unfair because they run counter to
necessary for the child to have lost both parents.                      the rights and interests of the applicant which are
                                                                        already judicially protected by and derive from the
Nor can the Commission rely on Article 21 of Annex VIII                 initial Commission decision approving the applications
to the Staff Regulations, since the first paragraph thereof             and from the certificates issued by the Departamento
refers to an 'orphan'. If the legislature understood thereby            para os Assuntos do Fundo Social Europeu (Dafse )
only children who had lost both parents, Article 21 would               immediately thereafter in accordance therewith,
be self-contradictory.
                                                                    — the two decisions are contradictory in so far as,
                                                                        despite the applicant's having implemented the
                                                                        operations, a matter which was not called in question
                                                                        at the time or now, they order the repayment of
                                                                        amounts received more than seven years previously
Action brought on 27 March 1997 by Proderec — Forma­                    which     have   been   disbursed     in  the    course     of
gao e Desenvolvimento de Recursos Humanos, ACE,                         implementing the two operations and as a result of
   against the Commission of the European Communities                   them,
                       ( Case T-72/97)
                         ( 971C 166/35 )                            — they are, moreover, contradictory with other decisions
                                                                        taken previously and they completely change
             (Language of the case: Portuguese)                         presumptions of fact and of law on which the
                                                                         operations were approved and implemented,
An action against the Commission of the European
Communities was brought before the Court of First                   — the decisions are fundamentally unfair inasmuch as
Instance of the European Communities on 27 March 1997                    they breach the principles of equal treatment, sound
by Proderec — Forma^ao e Desenvolvimento de Recursos                     administration and impartiality,
Humanos, ACE, whose registered office is at Av. 25 de
Abril, n? 7-B, S/loja , Almada, represented by Manuel
Rodrigues, of the Lisbon Bar, with an address for service           — finally, the decisions are unfounded in so far as they
in Luxembourg at the Chambers of Luisa Maria Miranda                     are contrary to the certificates issued by Dafse in 1990
Sousa Pires, 4A Rue Jearv Jaures, Luxembourg L-1836 .                    and that only such certification is valid inasmuch as it
                                                                         was effected within the 13-month time-limit, are in
                                                                         accordance with the conditions laid down in the
The applicant claims that the Court should :
                                                                         Community regulation and may not be unilaterally
                                                                         revoked,
— annul the Commission's decision of 9 December on
     file 880249P3 , and the Commission's decision of
     9 December on file         881311P1 , notified to the           — the two decisions alter, modify and undermine the
     applicant on 28 January 1997,                                       criteria underlying the initial decision of approval by