Italian Republic v European Commission.
Date: 2015-12-03
24. According to the Court’s case-law, the adversarial principle entails, as a general rule, the parties to proceedings being given an opportunity to state their views on the facts and documents on which a judicial decision will be based, and to discuss the evidence and observations submitted to the court and the points of law which the court has raised of its own motion and on which it proposes to base its decision (judgments in Commission  v Ireland and Others , C‑89/08 P, EU:C:2009:742, paragraphs 52 and 55, and Review of M  v EMEA , C‑197/09 RX‑II, EU:C:2009:804, paragraph 41).
26. As regards the obligation to state the grounds, the General Court cannot be criticised for having failed to address all the details of the arguments put forward by the Italian Republic to challenge the irregularities identified in the decision at issue. It is settled case-law that the duty incumbent upon the General Court under Article 36 and the first paragraph of Article 53 of the Statute of the Court of Justice to state reasons for its judgments does not require the General Court to provide an account that follows exhaustively and one by one all the arguments articulated by the parties to the case. The reasoning may also be implicit, on condition that it enables the persons concerned to understand the grounds of the General Court’s judgment and provides the Court of Justice with sufficient information to exercise its powers of review on appeal (judgments in Coop de France bétail et viande and Others v Commission , C‑101/07 P and C‑110/07 P, EU:C:2008:741, paragraph 75 and the case-law cited; A2A  v Commission , C‑318/09 P, EU:C:2011:856, paragraph 97; and France  v Commission , C‑559/12 P, EU:C:2014:217, paragraph 86).
42. It should be recalled that, according to settled case-law, it follows from the second subparagraph of Article 256(1) TFEU, the first paragraph of Article 58 of the Statute of the Court of Justice and Article 168(1)(d) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice that an appeal must indicate precisely the contested elements of the judgment which the appellant seeks to have set aside and also the legal arguments specifically advanced in support of the appeal (see, inter alia, judgments in Spain  v Commission , C‑197/13 P, EU:C:2014:2157, paragraph 43, and Ezz and Others  v Council , C‑220/14 P, EU:C:2015:147, paragraph 111 and the case-law cited). In this regard, Article 169(2) of the Rules of Procedure specifies that the pleas in law and legal arguments relied on must identify precisely those points in the grounds of the decision of the General Court which are contested.
43. Accordingly, an appeal which merely repeats or reproduces verbatim the pleas in law and arguments previously submitted to the General Court does not satisfy the requirements to state reasons under those provisions. However, the points of law examined at first instance may be argued again in the course of an appeal, provided that the appellant challenges the interpretation or application of EU law by the General Court. Indeed, if an appellant could not thus base his appeal on pleas in law and arguments already relied on before the General Court, an appeal would be deprived of part of its purpose (see, to that effect, judgments in Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Others  v Parliament and Council , C‑583/11 P, EU:C:2013:625, paragraphs 46 and 47, and Spain  v Commission , C‑197/13 P, EU:C:2014:2157, paragraphs 44 and 45 and the case-law cited).
51. It should be recalled that it follows from the second subparagraph of Article 256(1) TFEU and from the first paragraph of Article 58 of the Statute of the Court of Justice that the General Court has exclusive jurisdiction to find the facts, except where the substantive inaccuracy of its findings is apparent from the documents submitted to it, and to assess those facts (see judgment in Commission  v Aalberts Industries and Others , C‑287/11 P, EU:C:2013:445, paragraph 47 and the case-law cited). That assessment thus does not, save where the clear sense of the evidence has been distorted, constitute a point of law which is subject, as such, to review by the Court of Justice (see judgments in Lafarge  v Commission , C‑413/08 P, EU:C:2010:346, paragraph 15, and Activision Blizzard Germany v Commission , C‑260/09 P, EU:C:2011:62, paragraph 51 and the case-law cited).
52. There is such distortion where, without recourse to new evidence, the assessment of the existing evidence is clearly incorrect (judgment in Comitato ‘Venezia vuole vivere’ and Others v Commission , C‑71/09 P, C‑73/09 P and C‑76/09 P, EU:C:2011:368, paragraph 153 and the case-law cited). However, such distortion must be obvious from the documents on the Court’s file, without there being any need to carry out a new assessment of the facts and the evidence (judgment in General Motors  v Commission , C‑551/03 P, EU:C:2006:229, paragraph 54). Moreover, where an appellant alleges distortion of the evidence by the General Court, he must indicate precisely the evidence alleged to have been distorted by that Court and show the errors of appraisal which, in his view, led to that distortion (see, to that effect, Aalborg Portland and Others v Commission , C‑204/00 P, C‑205/00 P, C‑211/00 P, C‑213/00 P, C‑217/00 P and C‑219/00 P, EU:C:2004:6, paragraph 50, and PepsiCo v Grupo Promer Mon Graphic , C‑281/10 P, EU:C:2011:679, paragraph 78).
63. In that regard, reference should be made to the settled case-law concerning the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF), according to which, since the Member State concerned is best placed to collect and verify the data required for the clearance of EAGGF accounts, the Commission, for the purpose of proving an infringement of the rules on the common organisation of the agricultural markets, is not required to show exhaustively that the checks carried out by the national authorities were inadequate or that the figures they have transmitted are irregular, but must rather produce evidence of its serious and reasonable doubt regarding such checks or figures (see, to that effect, judgments in Greece  v Commission , C‑300/02, EU:C:2005:103, paragraphs 34 and 36 and the case-law cited, and Denmark  v Commission , C‑417/12 P, EU:C:2014:2288, paragraphs 80 and 81).
64. The Member State, for its part, cannot rebut the findings that underpin such evidence of the Commission’s serious and reasonable doubt unless it substantiates its own assertions with evidence of a reliable and operational supervisory system. If it is not able to show that the Commission’s findings are inaccurate, the latter amount to evidence liable to give rise to serious doubts as to the existence of an adequate and effective series of supervisory measures and inspection procedures (see judgment in Denmark  v Commission , C‑417/12 P, EU:C:2014:2288, paragraph 82 and the case-law cited).
65. Consequently, it is for the Member State concerned to adduce the most detailed and comprehensive evidence that its checks have been carried out and its figures are accurate and, as the case may be, that the Commission’s assertions are incorrect (judgments in Greece  v Commission , C‑300/02, EU:C:2005:103, paragraph 36 and the case-law cited, and Denmark  v Commission , C‑417/12 P, EU:C:2014:2288, paragraph 83).