European Commission v United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Date: 2014-04-03
45. Indeed, according to well established case-law of the Court, if an error committed by the customs authorities of a Member State results in the debtor not having to pay the duties in question, it does not affect that Member State’s obligation to pay duties that should have been established in the context of making available own resources, together with default interest (see, to that effect, C‑392/02 Commission  v Denmark , paragraph 63; Case C‑275/07 Commission  v Italy [2009] ECR I‑2005, paragraph 100; and Case C‑334/08 Commission  v Italy [2010] ECR I‑6869, paragraph 50).
49. It is clear from the case-law of the Court that there is no need to distinguish between a situation in which a Member State has established the duties on the own resources without paying them and one in which it has wrongfully omitted to establish them (see, inter alia, Case C‑96/89 Commission  v Netherlands  [1991] ECR I‑2461, paragraph 38, and Case C‑392/02 Commission  v Denmark , paragraph 67).
50. In particular, the Court has held that a Member State which fails to establish the European Union’s own resources and to make the corresponding amount available to the Commission, without one of the conditions laid down in Article 17(2) of Regulation No 1150/2000 being met, falls short of its obligations under EU law and, in particular, under Articles 2 and 8 of Decision 2000/597 (see, to that effect, Case C‑392/02 Commission  v Denmark , paragraph 68, and Case C‑19/05 Commission  v Denmark  [2007] ECR I‑8597, paragraph 32).
51. In paragraph 61 of the judgment in Case C‑334/08 Commission  v Italy , the Court stated that Article 17(2) of Regulation No 1150/2000, in the version applicable to the present case, establishes a procedure enabling a Member State’s administrative authorities either to declare certain amounts of established entitlements irrecoverable or to consider the amounts of established entitlements to be deemed irrecoverable at the latest after a period of five years from the date on which the amount has been established.
58. In that regard, it must be recalled that, according to settled case-law, there is an inseparable link between the obligation to establish the European Union’s own resources, the obligation to credit them to the Commission’s account within the prescribed time-limits and the obligation to pay default interest, that interest being payable regardless of the reason for the delay in making the entry in the Commission’s account (see, in particular, Case C‑423/08 Commission  v Italy  [2010] ECR I‑5449, paragraph 49 and the case-law cited, and Case C‑442/08 Commission  v Germany  [2010] ECR I‑6457, paragraph 93).
59. Under Article 11 of Regulation No 1150/2000, any delay in making the entry in the account referred to in Article 9(1) of that regulation gives rise to the payment of default interest by the Member State concerned at the interest rate applicable to the entire period of delay (see Case C‑460/01 Commission  v Netherlands  [2005] ECR I‑2613, paragraph 91, and Case C‑275/07 Commission  v Italy , paragraph 66).
61. Lastly, as regards the infringement of Article 4(3) TEU, also relied on by the Commission, there are no grounds for holding that the United Kingdom has failed to fulfil the general obligations under that provision, which is separate from the established failure to fulfil the more specific obligations incumbent upon that Member State under the provisions referred to in the preceding paragraph (see, by analogy, Case C‑392/02 Commission  v Denmark , paragraph 69; Case C‑19/05 Commission  v Denmark , paragraph 36; and Case C‑334/08 Commission  v Italy , paragraph 75).