Kingdom of Belgium v European Commission.
Date: 2019-01-30
39


With regard to the admissibility of the first part of the single ground of appeal, it should be recalled that, according to the settled case-law of the Court of Justice, its jurisdiction in an appeal is limited to a review of the findings of law on the pleas argued before the General Court. Consequently, a party cannot put forward for the first time before the Court of Justice a plea in law which it has not raised before the General Court since that would allow that party to bring before the Court of Justice, whose jurisdiction in appeal proceedings is limited, a wider case than that heard by the General Court (judgment of 13 July 2017, Saint-Gobain Glass Deutschland v Commission, C‑60/15 P, EU:C:2017:540, paragraph 50 and the case-law cited).
40


However, an argument which was not raised at first instance does not constitute a new plea that is inadmissible at the appeal stage if it is simply an amplification of an argument already developed in the context of a plea set out in the application before the General Court (judgment of 13 July 2017, Saint-Gobain Glass Deutschland v Commission, C‑60/15 P, EU:C:2017:540, paragraph 51 and the case-law cited).
57


Secondly, that Member State submits that not all appeals automatically lead to a reference to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling, since in certain instances not making a referral may be justified in accordance with the principles laid down in the judgment of 6 October 1982, Cilfit and Others (283/81, EU:C:1982:335, paragraph 21).
67


Article 9(1), reproduced essentially in Article 58(1), by requiring Member States to ensure the protection of the European Union’s financial interests and to recover sums unduly paid, expresses, as regards the financing of the common agricultural policy, the duty of general diligence laid down in Article 4(3) TEU (see, to that effect, judgments of 21 February 1991, Germany v Commission, C‑28/89, EU:C:1991:67, paragraph 31; of 21 January 1999, Germany v Commission, C‑54/95, EU:C:1999:11, paragraphs 66 and 177; and of 13 November 2001, France v Commission, C‑277/98, EU:C:2001:603, paragraph 40). That duty, which applies throughout the procedure for the recovery of those sums, means that the national authorities are to effect recovery promptly and in good time, and are to make use of the means of verification and recovery at their disposal in order to ensure that those interests are protected.
69


Since the EAGF’s financing is managed primarily by the national administrative authorities responsible for ensuring that the EU rules are strictly observed, and which have the necessary geographical proximity for that purpose (see, to that end, judgments of 24 January 2002, France v Commission, C‑118/99, EU:C:2002:39, paragraph 37, and of 7 July 2005, Greece v Commission, C‑5/03, EU:C:2005:426, paragraph 40), then, as the Advocate General stated in point 93 of his Opinion, the Member States are best placed to recover the sums unduly paid or lost as a result of irregularities or negligence and to determine the most appropriate steps to be taken in that respect.
77


Secondly, it is apparent from the settled case-law of the Court of Justice that the obligation, recalled in paragraph 74 above, on the part of the Cour de cassation (Court of Cassation) to make a request for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice, where a question of EU law is raised before it, the Cour de cassation (Court of Cassation) is not under such an obligation when it finds that the question raised is irrelevant, that the provision of EU law in question has already been interpreted by the Court of Justice or that the correct application of EU law is so obvious as to leave no scope for any reasonable doubt, and the existence of such a possibility must be assessed in the light of the specific characteristics of EU law, the particular difficulties to which its interpretation gives rise and the risk of divergences in judicial decisions within the European Union (see, to that effect, judgments of 6 October 1982, Cilfit and Others, 283/81, EU:C:1982:335, paragraph 21; of 9 September 2015, Ferreira da Silva e Brito and Others, C‑160/14, EU:C:2015:565, paragraphs 38 and 39; and of 4 October 2018, Commission v France (Advance payment), C‑416/17, EU:C:2018:811, paragraph 110).