Kingdom of the Netherlands v Commission of the European Communities.
Date: 2003-11-06
20. According to the first indent of Article 3(5) of Decision 90/424, the financial contribution by the Community is   " 50% of the costs incurred by the Member State in compensating owners for the slaughter, destruction of animals and, where appropriate, their products, for the cleaning, disinsectisation and disinfection of holdings and equipment and for the destruction of the contaminated feedingstuffs referred to in the second indent of paragraph 2" .
21. Article 3(2) of Decision 90/424 defines the conditions to which that financial contribution is subject.  They include, in particular, the slaughter of certain categories of animals, the cleaning of the holdings, the destruction of the dead bodies and also of contaminated feedingstuffs and equipment which cannot be disinfected, the establishment of protection zones, the prevention of the risk of the spread of infection and swift and adequate compensation of the livestock farmers.
22. According to the actual wording of that provision, it is only where the conditions set out in the applicable Community legislation are fulfilled that entitlement to the financial contribution arises.  Accordingly, if only one of those conditions is not satisfied, that is sufficient for the Member State not to be entitled to the Community financial contribution.  Nor is there any provision for payment to be made pro rata if the measures required by the Community legislation are taken only in part.
23. This arrangement may be explained by the fact that the absence of just one of the conditions is liable to have a seriously deleterious effect on the success of the fight against classical swine fever.
24. However, it must be accepted that instead of granting no financial contribution where a Member State has not complied with all the conditions set out in the Community legislation, the Commission may, in application of the principle of proportionality, deduct from the amount of the expenditure in respect of which the Member State seeks a Community financial contribution the expenditure occasioned by the failure to comply with those conditions and consider the financial contribution only in respect of the remaining amount.
25. It must also be accepted, moreover, that the fight against a widespread epizootic cannot be undertaken without errors and that, in principle, the existence of certain errors should not preclude the Community financial contribution.  However, where such errors exceed the limit of what might be reasonably regarded as inevitable and therefore excusable in a complex and sometimes complicated situation, their financial consequences cannot be borne, even in part, by the Community and must be assumed by the Member State to which the authorities responsible for the errors belong.
26. Contrary to what the Netherlands Government claims in its application, the fact that the Member State assumes 50% of the expenditure does not constitute a sufficient precaution against the authorities of that State exceeding the limits of what is necessary and appropriate to combat an epizootic.  Although it is true that that way of apportioning the costs provides an incentive to keep the costs as low as possible, the Community legislation does not require the Community to contribute 50% of the expenditure, independently of the justification for its amount.
27. The Community financial contribution is limited to measures taken in accordance with Article 3(2) of Decision 90/424.  The costs incurred by the Member State for the purposes of Article 3(5) must therefore be limited to those which are necessary and appropriate for the implementation of those measures.
28. Consequently, where the authorities of a Member State have made errors in the fight against an epizootic which have entailed costs for which the Member State must assume responsibility (see paragraph 25 of this judgment), the Commission may reduce the Community contribution by the amount corresponding to those errors.
29. As regards the fact that the Commission may rely on estimates and apply flat-rate adjustments, the Commission cannot be required to examine in detail each slaughtered animal and each case of the destruction of feedingstuffs or contaminated equipment.  Both where a Member State has not complied with all the conditions laid down in the Community legislation and where there have been errors for which the Member State must assume financial responsibility, the Commission is entitled to rely on estimates or to apply flat-rate adjustments, provided that those estimates and adjustments are reasonably based on the figures available to it.
30. The first part of the second plea and the fourth plea must therefore be rejected.
First plea and second part of the second plea
32. Under Decision 90/424, the Member State concerned is required to implement a certain number of measures in order to benefit from the Community financial contribution for the fight against classical swine fever.  As the multitude of possible situations means that the Community legislation cannot determine precisely what those measures are in each individual case, the Commission, when it evaluates the measures adopted by the Member States, must take account of the fact that the latter have a certain latitude as regards the choice of the measures to be taken and the manner in which they are to be implemented and that in that regard it cannot substitute its own assessment for that of the Member State concerned.
33. That is  a  fortiori  true because the applicable Community legislation includes provisions which employ wide and general terms, such as the concept of   " swift and adequate compensation" , which lend themselves to diverging interpretations.
34. On the other hand, if the Commission, while respecting the latitude enjoyed by the Member State concerned, has established that that State has not taken sufficient steps to combat the disease and that a financial adjustment must be applied, it is for that Member State, as the Advocate General states at point 66 of her Opinion, to prove that the Commission has made a manifest error of assessment.  In so far as the Member State is unable to provide such proof, it cannot successfully initiate proceedings against the financial adjustment applied by the Commission.
54. Whilst the reasoning required by Article 253 EC must show clearly and unequivocally the reasoning of the Community authority which adopted the contested measure so as to enable the persons concerned to ascertain the reasons for it and to enable the Court to exercise judicial review, the authority is not required to go into every relevant point of fact and law (see, inter alia, Case C-491/01  British American Tobacco (Investments) and Imperial Tobacco [2002] ECR I-11453, paragraph 165).
55. Furthermore, the question whether a statement of reasons satisfies the requirements must be assessed with reference not only to the wording of the impugned measure but also to its context and to the whole body of legal rules governing the matter in question ( British American Tobacco (Investments) and Imperial Tobacco , cited above, paragraph 166).
56. That is  a fortiori  the case where the Member State concerned has been closely associated with the process of drafting the contested measure and is thus aware of the reasons underlying the measure (see, as regards the clearance of the EAGGF accounts, Case C-27/94  Netherlands  v  Commission  [1998] ECR I-5581, paragraph 36, and, as regards total allowable catches of fish, Case C-120/99  Italy  v  Council  [2001] ECR I-7997, paragraph 29).