Notice for the OJ

 

Action brought on 22 January 2004 by González y Díez S.A. against the Commission of the European Communities

(Case T-25/04)

(Language of the case: Spanish)

An action against the Commission of the European Communities was brought before the Court of First Instance of the European Communities on 22 January 2004 by González y Díez S.A., whose registered office is at Villabona-Llanera (Asturias, Spain), represented by J. Díez-Hochleitner and A. Martínez Sánchez, lawyers.

The applicant claims that the Court should:

-    annul in their entirety Articles 1, 3 and 4 of the Commission decision of 5 November 2003 on aid for González y Díez S.A. to cover exceptional expenses. (aid for 2001 and misuse of aid for 1998 and 2000), and in so far as that decision amends Decision 2002/827/ECSC; and

-    order the Commission to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The Decision challenged in the present proceedings abrogates Articles 1, 2 and 5 of Decision 2002/827/ECSC of 2 July 2002 on the granting by Spain of aid to the undertaking González y Díez S.A. in 1998, 2000 and 2001. That decision has already been the subject of a previous action, brought by the same company ¹.

The Decision challenged:

-    states in Article 1 that certain aid for the coal industry granted to the applicant to cover exceptional restructuring costs totalling EUR 3 131 726.47 constitutes an abuse of Commission Decisions 98/637/ECSC ² and 2001/162/ECSC ³ of 3 June 1998 and 13 December 2000 respectively on the granting by Spain of aid to the coal industry in 1998 and 2000 and are, therefore, incompatible with the common market;

-    declares, in Article 3, that certain aid that Spain intends to grant to the applicant to cover exceptional restructuring costs in 2001 are incompatible with Article 7 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1407/2002 of 23 July 2002 on State aid to the coal industry ⁴;

requires Spain, in Article 4, to recover, among other amounts, the aid mentioned in Article 1.

In support of its claims, the applicant alleges:

-    lack of competence on the part of the Commission to adopt the decision challenged, following the expiry of the ECSC Treaty;

-    the inappropriateness of the procedure followed in adopting the decision challenged, the Commission having failed to previously to revoke Articles 1, 2 and 5 of Decision 2002/827/ECSC;

-    infringement of the principle of legal certainty and cumulative procedural errors, inasmuch as Article 1 of the decision challenged treats as unlawful and incompatible with the common market certain aid authorised by Decision 98/637/ECSC, even though that aid had already been held to be justified in Decision 2002/827/ECSC.

-    a manifest error of assessment of the facts, inasmuch as the Commission failed to take the view that certain aid granted to the applicant to cover exceptional restructuring costs was justified.

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¹ - T-291/02 González y Díez v Commission (OJ 2002 C 289, p.33)

² - OJ 1998 L 303, p. 57

³ - OJ 2001 L 58, p. 24

⁴ - OJ 2002 L 205, p. 1