Action brought on 22 February 2010 - Regione Puglia v Commission

(Case T-84/10)

Language of the case: Italian

Parties

Applicant: Regione Puglia (Bari, Italy) (represented by: F. Brunelli, lawyer, A. Aloia, lawyer)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

Annul the contested decision.

Order the defendant to pay the costs, including a fixed amount for general costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

By the present action, the Regione Puglia claims that the Court should annul Decision No C(2009) 10350 of the European Commission of 22 December 2009, concerning the cancellation of part of the contribution from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) allocated to the operational programme POR Puglia Obiettivo 1 2000-2006, and uphold only the provision made in Article 4 of that decision.

In support of its claims, the Regione Puglia relies on precise objections raised by it in relation to the accuracy and validity of the complaints made against it by the Commission, and on the unlawfulness and erroneous nature of the methods used by the Commission for evaluating the results of the audits carried out in 2007 and 2009.

More specifically, the Regione Puglia submits that the decision was taken notwithstanding that:

the checks performed by the Commission and serving as a basis for the decision were not carried out appropriately and on time;

the results arrived at by the Commission in respect of each priority and each measure, and in respect of each of the checks carried out, are not confirmed or supported by the documents lodged and examined and, in some cases, those results were obtained without the necessary consideration of the legislation applicable to the sector;

in any event, as regards methodology, the evaluations carried out are not suitable for confirming and corroborating the Commission's conclusions, which, moreover, appear presented as self-evident in so far as they are not sufficiently reasoned and/or proved.

Nonetheless, the Commission took no account whatsoever of:

the various results of the audits performed by the European Court of Auditors and the Ministry for the Economy and Finance of the Italian Republic;

the observations and objections submitted from time to time by the Regione Puglia in a detailed, substantiated and timely manner, in response to the complaints and requests made by the Commission; and, furthermore,

the Commission failed in its duty of cooperation which must inform the relationships between itself and the recipient of the funding, reaching decisions and making findings before it had even received and examined the responses and clarifications which it itself had sought from the Regione Puglia.

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