Case T‑358/08

(publication by extracts)

Kingdom of Spain

v

European Commission

(Cohesion fund — Regulation (EC) No 1174/94 — Zaragoza waste-water treatment project — Partial withdrawal of financial assistance — Public procurement — Concept of work — Article 14(10) and (13) of Directive 93/38 — Splitting of contracts — Legitimate expectation — Obligation to state reasons — Time limit for adoption of a decision — Fixing financial corrections — Article H, paragraph 2, of Annex II to Regulation No 1164/94 — Proportionality — Limitation period)

Summary — Judgment of the General Court (Eighth Chamber), 11 July 2013

1.      Approximation of laws — Procedure for awarding public contracts in the water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors — Directive 93/38 — Work — Concept — Criteria — Economic and technical function of the result of works — Artificial splitting of a single work — Works for the treatment and cleaning of waste water — Assessment — Classification as a single work

(Council Directive 93/38, Art. 14(10), first para., second sentence, and (13))

2.      Approximation of laws — Procedure for awarding public contracts in the water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors — Directive 93/38 — Work — Concept — Geographical and time factors — Existence of a single contracting entity and possibility of a single undertaking carrying out the whole of the works — Not decisive criteria

(Council Directive 93/38, Art. 14(10), first para., second sentence)

3.      Approximation of laws — Procedure for awarding public contracts in the water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors — Directive 93/38 — Principle of non-discrimination between tenderers — Scope

(Council Directive 93/38, Art. 4(2))

4.      Approximation of laws — Procedure for awarding public contracts in the water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors — Directive 93/38 — Work — Concept — Criterion — Economic and technical function of the result of works — Artificial splitting of a single work — Not permissible — No requirement for an intentional act on the part of the contracting entities

(Council Directive 93/38, Art. 14(13))

1.      The Commission does not err in holding that works covered by public contracts in the water sectors fulfil the same technical function within the meaning of Article 14(10), first subparagraph, of Directive 93/38, coordinating the procurement procedures of entities operating in the water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors, where its analysis does not consist in examining independently the different works referred to by the disputed contracts and in assessing their own technical function, considers whether the result of the works has one and the same technical function. That is the case with projects covering, first, the construction of a waste-water network capable of carrying waste water to the main sewers, thus avoiding floods, leaks into the ground water and the uncontrolled discharge of waste-water, and, second, the installation of sewers in order to serve zones still discharging effluent directly into rivers and to renovate the two installations for the treatment of waste water to which the waste water is carried, so that the Commission considers that they are works resulting in an overall improvement in the waste-water treatment system, intended in itself to fulfil a technical function, which is the treatment of waste water.

(see paras 45-48, 50, 64, 65, 69, 82, 83, 87, 89, 90, 118)

2.      The geographical and time factors are not criteria for defining a work within the meaning of Article 14(10), first subparagraph, of Directive 93/38, coordinating the procurement procedures of entities operating in the water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors, according to which ‘work’ is to mean the result of building and civil engineering activities, taken as a whole, which are intended to fulfil an economic and technical function by themselves, but constitute necessary elements for corroborating the existence of such a work because only works situated within a specific geographical and time framework may be regarded as a single work.

The definition of the term ‘work’ in that subparagraph does not make the existence of a work dependent on matters such as the number of contracting entities or whether the whole of the works can be carried out by a single undertaking. Whilst the existence of a single contracting entity and the possibility of a Community undertaking’s carrying out the whole of the works described in the contracts concerned may, according to circumstances, constitute corroborative evidence of the existence of a work within the meaning of the directive, they cannot, on the other hand, constitute decisive criteria on that point.

(see paras 50-53, 57, 58, 95, 102)

3.      See the text of the decision.

(see para. 112)

4.      See the text of the decision.

(see para. 118)