Action brought on 7 December 2009 - Italy v Commission

(Case T-500/09)

Language of the case: Italian

Parties

Applicant: Italian Republic (represented by: L. Ventrella, avvocato dello Stato)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

Annul in part Decision C (2009) 7044 of 24 September 2009, notified on 25 September 2009, excluding from Community financing certain expenditure incurred by the Member States under the Guarantee Section of the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF), insofar as it applied to Italy, for the financial years 2005 and 2006:

fixed-rate financial corrections (5%) on account of various alleged weaknesses in controls in the fruit and vegetables sector - citrus processing - totalling EUR 3 539 679.81.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of its challenge, the Italian Republic pleads breach of an essential procedural requirement (Article 253 EC), on account of a failure to state adequate reasons, and breach of the principle of proportionality.

The applicant submits in that connection that the Commission corrected certain aid for citrus processing and, in implementing those corrections, failed to ensure that adequate checks had been carried out as to whether the product delivered to the producers' organisations tallied with the product delivered to the processors and as to whether the product delivered for processing tallied with the finished product. According to the Italian Government, in the course of the procedure it had emerged that the checks had been carried out satisfactorily, in particular as regards both administrative/accounting checks and physical checks, at both the Organizzazione di Produttori (Producers' Organisation) and the processors; the checks were unannounced (without prior notice to the industry as to the date of the checks) and, in any event, were greater in number than that provided for in the relevant legislation. The essential point which the Commission should have addressed by stating adequate reasons in its decision was therefore whether the risk of loss to the Fund was 'significant', such as to justify a fixed-rate correction of 5%, which appears, in any event, to be disproportionate.

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