Salzgitter AG, formerly Preussag Stahl AG v Commission of the European Communities and Federal Republic of Germany.
Date: 2000-07-13
42 According to settled case-law, where an appeal merely repeats or reproduces verbatim the pleas in law and arguments previously submitted to the Court of First Instance, including those based on facts expressly rejected by that Court, it fails to satisfy the requirements under Article 51 of the ECSC and EC Statutes of the Court of Justice and Article 112(1)(c) of the Rules of Procedure. In reality, such an appeal amounts to no more than a request for re-examination of the application submitted to the Court of First Instance, which, under Article 49 of those statutes, falls outside the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice (see, in particular, the order of 25 March 1998 in Case C-174/97 P FFSA and Others v Commission [1998] ECR I-1303, paragraph 24).
43 As the Commission itself acknowledges, however, provided that the appellant challenges the interpretation or application of Community law by the Court of First Instance, the points of law examined at first instance may be discussed again in the course of an appeal.
49 The Court of Justice has already had occasion to hold that the period for notification laid down in a specific provision of Commission Decision No 2320/81/ECSC of 7 August 1981 establishing Community rules for aid to the steel industry (OJ 1981 L 228, p. 14), the so-called Second Steel Aid Code (hereinafter the Second Code), operated as a time-bar such as to preclude the approval of any aid plan notified subsequent to it (Case 214/83 Germany v Commission [1985] ECR 3053, paragraphs 45 to 47). The Court held that according to the express requirements of the Second Code the time-limits laid down in such provisions could not be amended by the Commission unless certain conditions were satisfied and unless the Council gave its assent.
50 When they were invited at the hearing to express their views on the solution adopted in the judgment in Germany v Commission, cited above, Salzgitter and the German Government claimed, essentially, that that judgment concerned the Second Code and therefore had no relevance to the interpretation of the Fifth Code. The Commission observed that in the instant case it was the expiry of the period within which it was authorised to reach a decision, not the expiry of the period prescribed for notification, that had made it impossible to authorise the aid. The Commission concluded that the nature of the period for notification was not material to the outcome of the dispute.
51 It must be pointed out, however, that the specific provisions of the Fifth Code laying down time-limits, in particular for notification of planned aid, are drafted in terms comparable to the analogous provisions of the Second Code. The only differences are to be found in the duration of the periods and in the absence in the Fifth Code of express provisions relating to their amendment.
52 As regards the duration of the periods, while Member States had a little over a year between the date of entry into force of the Second Code and the date of expiry of the period for notification of the planned aid, the corresponding period under the Fifth Code was significantly longer, since that code entered into force on 1 January 1992 and, pursuant to Article 6(1), the period for notifying proposed aid of the type at issue in the present case expired on 30 June 1994. On the other hand, the period between that date and the expiry of the period for authorisation by the Commission was limited, for aid such as that at issue, to six months, since it ended on 31 December 1994, whereas under the Second Code that period was nine months.
53 In the absence of any express provisions in that regard in the Fifth Code, the relevant time-limits could only be amended in accordance with the procedure followed for the adoption of the Fifth Code, that is to say, pursuant to Article 95 of the ECSC Treaty, which requires the unanimous assent of the Council.
54 In those circumstances, it is impossible to accept that the time-limit for notification laid down in the Fifth Code, which in practice is more favourable to Member States than that laid down in the Second Code (although, conversely, the period within which the Commission is to authorise the aid is less generous in the Fifth Code than in the Second Code), and the amendment of which is not even contemplated, constitutes, unlike that laid down in the Second Code, merely a procedural time-limit of an indicative nature.
55 Thus, within the framework of each of those codes, the Commission was not entitled to authorise aid unless the plans to grant or alter it had been notified before the time-limit specifically laid down.
58 However, it should be pointed out that where the grounds of a judgment of the Court of First Instance disclose an infringement of Community law but the operative part of the judgment is shown to be well founded for other legal reasons, the appeal must be dismissed (see Case C-30/91 P Lestelle v Commission [1992] ECR I-3755, paragraph 28, and Case C-320/92 P Finsider v Commission [1994] ECR I-5697, paragraph 37).
59 The Commission was required to adopt a negative decision in respect of proposal No 777/94, since it had not been notified to it within the prescribed period. The action brought against Decision 96/544 before the Court of First Instance therefore had to be dismissed irrespective of the pleas in law put forward in support of that action.
60 It follows that the grounds of appeal relied on by the appellant against the contested judgment and alleging infringement of Community law by the Court of First Instance are of no consequence and that its appeal must therefore be dismissed.