Official Journal of the European Union

Series C

C/2023/53

9.10.2023

(Case T-422/23)

(C/2023/53)

Language of the case: Italian

Parties

Applicant: Lara Comi (Saronno, Italy) (represented by: V. Mariconda, M. Centonze, G. Recine and A. Diaconu, lawyers)

Defendants: European Parliament, Secretary General of the EPP group (Brussels, Belgium), Group of the European People’s Party (EPP) (Strasbourg, France)

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

—As a preliminary matter, suspend the execution of the decision and debit note No 7030000946, all on the legal and factual grounds set out more fully in the present application, and

—find and declare that the applicant lacks capacity to be a defendant in so far as the addressees of the charges should have been the companies with which the contracts for services at issue were entered into, all on the legal and factual grounds set out more fully in the present application;

—primarily, find and declare that the applicant, having regard to the contracts for services in question and the related supporting documents produced, did not infringe the implementing measures for the Statute for Members of the European Parliament (‘the implementing measures’) in connection with the requests relating to the appropriations assigned to the Group of the European People’s Party under budget item 400, all on the legal and factual grounds set out more fully in the present application, and

—annul, declare invalid/ineffective and/or, in any event, definitively revoke the decision of the Secretary General of the Group of the European People’s Party (EPP) of 5 June 2023 and the related debit note No 7030000946;

—in the alternative and conditionally, in the event — to which the applicant does not ascribe — that the charges levelled by the decision were to be upheld, declare that the recovery of part of the amount (equivalent to EUR 54 889,99) ordered by debit note No 7030000946 is time-barred/has expired, and

—declare ineffective and/or revoke debit note No 7030000946, recalculating any amounts due by the third parties which received the payments referred to in the documents or, in the further alternative, due by the relevant person, to the lesser extent that may be determined as a result of the present action;

—order the defendants to pay all the costs and fees incurred by the applicant relating to the present action and, more generally, for the defence in connection with the contested charges.

Pleas in law and main arguments

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

—First plea, concerning liability of the EPP and the European Parliament in the light of the checks carried out on the payments that are the subject of the contracts at issue. The applicant claims that she is not liable, as she had a legitimate expectation that the contracts in question were lawful, which resulted from the positive outcome of the (ex ante and ex post) checks and controls by the review group empowered under the specific regime laid down in the regulation.

—Second plea, alleging that the amounts ordered are not recoverable due to being time-barred/having expired. The greater part of the amounts charged by the debit note (for a total sum of EUR 54 889,99) is no longer recoverable, given the expiry of the time limit laid down in Article 98(2) of the Financial Regulation and given the consequent five-year time bar which is applicable under Article 105 of that regulation. In fact, the decision and debit note challenged in this case were issued outside the five-year period which starts to run from the time when the EU institution was normally in a position to claim the alleged debt (in the present case, both the EPP and the Parliament had available to them all the information and documents in order to raise any formal challenges in good time).

—Third plea, alleging that the applicant lacks capacity to be a defendant and that she does not have strict liability. The applicant clearly lacks capacity to be a defendant in so far as the addressees of the charges should, rather, have been the companies which supplied the services for which the contracts at issue were concluded. In that connection, similarly, the applicant cannot incur strict liability, as there is no rule which provides for this and, further, the applicant had no power to influence or control third parties (the suppliers of services) which are completely autonomous without any hierarchical relationship.

—Fourth plea, alleging breach of the principle of proportionality. The debit note issued in respect of the applicant is inconsistent with the principle of proportionality laid down in Article 101(2)(c) of the Financial Regulation. The provision in question provides, in fact, that ‘the authorising officer responsible may waive recovery of all or part of an established amount receivable … (c) where recovery is inconsistent with the principle of proportionality’. Therefore, in the present case, it is obvious that there is a fundamental breach of that principle, since Ms Comi has always been confident in the regularity and lawfulness of her own conduct in relation to the appropriations assigned to the EPP Group under budget item 400 (as she has never had indications to the contrary and always acted as a constantly active member of the EPP Group). There is, therefore, a breach of the principle of proportionality also in connection with the fact that it is not disputed that the funding was used for the purposes for which it was granted, the decision raising only the (inaccurate and unfounded) issue of how those services were supplied.

—Fifth plea, alleging failure to state the rules that were allegedly infringed, resulting in breach of the applicant’s rights of defence. As the decision merely refers to an alleged infringement of the implementing measures for the Statute for Members of the European Parliament (‘the implementing measures’) in connection with the requests relating to the appropriations assigned to the Group of the European People’s Party under budget item 400, it was not specified which rules were infringed in order to lead to a finding that the contracts at issue were invalid/unlawful and therefore subject to recovery of amounts unduly paid. Above all, it was not specified which rules the applicant had allegedly infringed. In fact, the reference to alleged strict liability is also completely generic and lacking justification; those reasons confirm that the claims against the applicant are entirely unfounded.

—Sixth plea, alleging that the individual contracts for services do not contain any irregularities and, in any event, that the applicant is not liable. Even if it were the case that, for part of the services supplied under those contracts for services, the various suppliers relied on third party auxiliaries — natural or legal persons, also within the same group of undertakings — this would in no way invalidate the circumstance that the services were in actual fact supplied and therefore had to be remunerated. Further, any absence of contracts and invoices between the suppliers of services selected by the applicant and the third party auxiliaries used by those suppliers does not mean with certainty that this leads to irregularity which can be imputed to the applicant. This would, in fact, rather amount to an infringement of tax rules and/or intragroup relations between the various undertakings, which, moreover, involves Italian law alone. None of the above, therefore, can have any relevance whatsoever to the EU legislation referred to in the decision. As a result, also for those reasons, it is clear that the individual charges on the merits set out in the decision are entirely unfounded.

ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2023/53/oj

ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)

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Language of the case: Italian