Commission of the European Communities v République de Finlande.
Date: 2003-11-27
29. It must be observed at the outset that the Finnish Government has raised objections of inadmissibility against both the Commission ' s action and the Swedish Government ' s application to intervene and has thus put forward its pleas in law on the substance in the alternative. Given that those objections go to the substance of the parties ' arguments, the Court will set them out after considering the substance of the case.
Substance
79. It is settled case-law that the purpose of the pre-litigation procedure is to give the Member State concerned an opportunity, on the one hand, to comply with its obligations under Community law and, on the other, to avail itself of its right to defend itself against the charges formulated by the Commission (see, in particular, Case C-152/98  Commission  v  Netherlands  [2001] ECR I-3463, paragraph 23, and Case C-439/99  Commission  v  Italy  [2002] ECR I-305, paragraph 10).
80. Accordingly, the letter of formal notice from the Commission to the Member State and then the reasoned opinion issued by it delimit the subject-matter of the dispute, so that it cannot thereafter be extended. Consequently, the reasoned opinion and the application must be based on the same complaints (see, in particular, Case C-191/95  Commission  v  Germany  [1998] ECR I-5449, paragraph 55, and Case C-139/00  Commission  v  Spain  [2002] ECR I-6407, paragraph 18).
81. However, that requirement cannot be stretched so far as to mean that in every case the statement of the complaints set out in the letter of formal notice, the wording of the reasoned opinion and the forms of order sought in the action must be exactly the same, if the subject-matter of the proceedings as defined in the reasoned opinion has not been extended or altered (see  Commission  v  Germany  cited above, paragraph 56, and  Commission  v  Spain , paragraph 19).
84. Admittedly, the Commission mentioned the consequences for the Swedish market in mineral oils of the Republic of Finland ' s alleged failure to fulfil its obligations for the first time is its application. However, that fact, which is intended to demonstrate the inadequacy of the monitoring system put in place by Finnish law does not alter either the definition or the basis of the alleged failure to fulfil obligations.
85. Similarly, the arguments put forward by the Commission for the first time in its application concerning the lack of fiscal control of the use of domestic fuel oil in certain sectors of agriculture, forestry and public works has not led to the extension or alteration of the subject-matter of the alleged failure because the obligation to introduce such control in those sectors is expressly provided for by Article 8(2) and (3) of Directive 92/81.
86. It follows that during the pre-litigation procedure, the Commission defined in sufficiently clear terms the subject-matter of the dispute by setting out the obligations arising from Directives 92/81 and 92/82, with which the Republic of Finland has not complied.
87. Therefore, it must be held that the fact that in the application the Commission set out in detail the complaints it had already made in a more general way in the letter of formal notice and the reasoned opinion has no effect on the scope of the proceedings.
91. As regards the second plea of inadmissibility, as set out in paragraph 75 of the present judgment, it must be recalled that the fourth paragraph of Article 37 of the EC Statute of the Court of Justice does not prevent an intervener from using arguments different from those used by the party it is supporting, provided the intervener seeks to support the forms of order sought by that party (see, in particular, Case C-150/94 P  United Kingdom  v  Council  [1998] ECR I-7235, paragraph 36, and Case C-200/92 P  ICI  v  Commission  [1999] ECR I-4399, paragraph 31).
92. It must be held that the arguments put forward by the Swedish Government, as described in paragraphs 57 to 65 of the present judgment, to demonstrate that the inadequacy of the fiscal monitoring system prevents the effective application of the Swedish legislation implementing the relevant Community provisions, are intended to contribute to the success of the Commission ' s application by shedding further light on the dispute. Those arguments specifically concern the deficiencies in fiscal control alleged by the Commission to be the source of the failure to fulfil obligations alleged against the Republic of Finland.