BRUSELAS, 20 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) -
The European Justice has dismissed this Wednesday the appeal that Spain presented against the financial correction that the European Commission applied for a net amount of 5,010,303 euros by virtue of the voluntary associated aid, with respect to the financial years 2017 and 2018, corresponding to the application years 2016 and 2017.
Brussels informed the Spanish authorities that it had detected deficiencies in the accuracy of the aid calculation, in the quality of on-the-spot checks and in the required number of checks and whose existence was questioned by Spain, for which it submitted an appeal to the Commission's decision to correct the aid amounts based on these investigations.
In its ruling this Wednesday, the General Court of Justice of the EU (TGEU), in the first instance of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), has rejected this appeal and points out that one of the issues facing Spain and the Commission is whether or not, when a delay is detected in relation to the identification and registration requirements of animals but these are subsequently met, this delay entails the application of administrative sanctions.
The Commission considers that, when the identification and registration requirements have been met out of time, even if they are subsequently regularized, administrative sanctions should be applied, a thesis that supports the ruling of the CJEU.
Spain also alleged that the current system for calculating administrative sanctions does not discriminate based on the number of days of delay in the notification of the movement of an animal, which especially affects Spanish ranchers, with extensive herds of livestock that They move in transhumance and in which, therefore, the movement affects the entire herd and not just a few animals.
However, the General Court has also rejected this argument because Spain does not explain to what extent the area aid scheme can be extrapolated to the voluntary associated aid scheme for animals or to what extent the two aid schemes are equivalent and emphasizes that In any case, the area aid scheme is not comparable to the voluntary associated aid scheme.
