Action brought on 15 March 2013 – Jaczewski v Commission

(Case T-178/13)

Language of the case: Polish

Parties

Applicant: Grzegorz Jaczewski (Bielany, Poland) (represented by: M. Goss, lawyer)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

partially annul the European Commission implementing decision of 24 July 2012 (notified under document No C(2012) 5049) approving the grant of complementary national direct payments in Poland for 2012 pursuant to Article 132 of Council Regulation (EC) No 73/2009 of 19 January 2009 establishing common rules for direct support schemes for farmers under the common agricultural policy and establishing certain support schemes for farmers, amending Regulations (EC) No 1290/2005, (EC) No 247/2006, (EC) No 378/2007 and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003, which decision has introduced the application of modulation to complementary national direct payments exceeding EUR 5 000.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on two pleas in law.

The first plea in law alleges that the Commission infringed the principle of the hierarchy of legal rules by adopting measures contrary to Article 132 of Regulation No 73/2009, in light of the application of Article 7(1), in conjunction with Article 10, of that regulation, in that it applied modulation to complementary national direct payments although the modulation mechanism is not applicable in new Member States in respect of 2012.

The second plea in law alleges infringement of the principle of equal treatment and of Article 39 TFEU in conjunction with the second subparagraph of Article 40(2) thereof, given that the application of modulation in relation to complementary national direct payments leads to the amounts paid to farmers in the new Member States being reduced to a level lower than the amounts paid to their counterparts in Member States other than new Member States and that account was not taken, when the contested decision was adopted, of the diversity of the situations in individual regions of the European Union.