Kingdom of Spain v European Commission.
Date: 2017-12-20
42


In that respect, in accordance with the Court’s settled case-law, it has jurisdiction, on appeal, only to verify whether the national law was distorted, which must be obvious from the documents on its file (see, to that effect, judgment of 21 December 2016, Commission v Hansestadt Lübeck, C‑524/14 P, EU:C:2016:971, paragraph 20 and the case-law cited).
57


Since the present part of the first ground of appeal concerns an alleged error made by the General Court in examining the fourth Altmark condition, it must be noted that, in view of the cumulative nature of the Altmark conditions, even if the General Court erred in considering that one of those conditions was not satisfied, that could not bring about the annulment of the judgment under appeal if the General Court also held, without erring in law, that another of those conditions was not satisfied (judgment delivered today, Comunidad Autónoma del País Vasco and Others v Commission, C‑66/16 P to C‑69/16 P, paragraph 49).
61


The Kingdom of Spain maintains that the General Court erred in law, in paragraphs 101 to 110 of the judgment under appeal, in its analysis of the compatibility of the aid with the internal market for the purpose of Article 107(3)(c) TFEU. The Kingdom of Spain submits that the General Court’s reasoning contains several errors which demonstrate that it did not carry out its judicial review in accordance with the case-law arising from the judgment of 15 February 2005, Commission v Tetra Laval (C‑12/03 P, EU:C:2005:87, paragraph 39).
70


It must be borne in mind that, according to the settled case-law of the Court of Justice, to which the General Court correctly referred in paragraph 99 of the judgment under appeal, in the context of the review conducted by the European Union judicature of complex economic assessments made by the Commission in the field of State aid, it is not for that judicature to substitute its own economic assessment for that of the Commission. However, the European Union judicature must, inter alia, establish not only whether the evidence relied on is factually accurate, reliable and consistent but also whether that evidence contains all the relevant information which must be taken into account in order to assess a complex situation and whether it is capable of substantiating the conclusions drawn from it (see, inter alia, judgment of 24 October 2013, Land Burgenland and Others v Commission, C‑214/12 P, C‑215/12 P and C‑223/12 P, EU:C:2013:682, paragraphs 78 and 79 and the case-law cited).
74


In paragraph 104 of the judgment under appeal, the General Court rightly referred to the case-law of the Court of Justice, according to which, in the case of an aid scheme, the Commission may confine itself to examining the characteristics of the scheme at issue in order to determine, in the grounds of its decision, whether that scheme is necessary for the attainment of one of the objectives specified in Article 107(3) TFEU. Thus, in a decision which concerns such a scheme, the Commission is not required to carry out an analysis of the aid granted in individual cases under the scheme. It is only at the stage of recovery of the aid that it is necessary to look at the individual situation of each undertaking concerned (judgment of 13 June 2013, HGA and Others v Commission, C‑630/11 P to C‑633/11 P, EU:C:2013:387, paragraph 114 and the case-law cited).