9.11.2015

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 371/29

(Case T-508/15)

(2015/C 371/32)

Language of the case: Lithuanian

Parties

Applicant: Republic of Lithuania (represented by: D. Kriaučiūnas, R. Krasuckaitė, M. Palionis and A. Petrauskaitė, Agents)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

—annul European Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2015/1119 of 22 June 2015 excluding from European Union financing certain expenditure incurred by the Member States under the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and under the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), in so far as it is addressed to the Republic of Lithuania and relates to the Scheme for early retirement from agricultural commodities production (budget item: 6711);

—order the European Commission to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on one plea in law, alleging infringement of EU law:

By adopting the contested decision, the Commission infringed Article 52(2) of Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013 (1) in conjunction with the principle of proportionality, because:

(1)Without taking into account the nature of the infringement and the financial damage caused to the European Union, the Commission applied a flat-rate correction, although the information presented following the ex-post verification of all applications, carried out by Lithuania in an appropriate and reasonable manner, made it possible to determine with precision the financial damage actually caused to the European Union. The Government of the Republic of Lithuania asserts that the ex-post verifications carried out by the Lithuanian authorities are an appropriate means of determining the actual damage to the funds, because:

—the criteria chosen for the verifications are consistent with the concept of agricultural commodities production;

—the Commission wrongly linked the concept of agricultural commodities production with the concept of semi-subsistence farms;

—the Commission failed to take into account the objectives of the Republic of Lithuania and the measures which were set out clearly in the rural development programme documents.

(2)In any event, the Commission misapplied the excessive 5 % financial correction, since the application of that correction is provided for solely when the risk of loss to the EU budget is significant, whereas the verifications carried out and the information presented by the Republic of Lithuania proved that only a small financial risk to the EU budget could have arisen.

(1) Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2013 on the financing, management and monitoring of the common agricultural policy and repealing Council Regulations (EEC) No 352/78, (EC) No 165/94, (EC) No 2799/98, (EC) No 814/2000, (EC) No 1290/2005 and (EC) No 485/2008 (OJ 2013 L 347, p. 549).