Brussels, 29/03/2011 (Agence Europe) - In its ruling on the 29 March case, the General Court decided that during the recovery of a fine, the Commission was not in a position to assess conformity with national legislation and EU law itself. This evaluation is the exclusive competency of the European Court of Justice. The Commission must therefore begin a new preliminary procedure to rectify this shortcoming and take action on the basis of infringement procedures.
On 14 October 2004, the European Court of Justice ruled against Portugal for not having amended its national legislation making the award of damages to persons harmed by a breach of Community law relating to public contracts. The litigious legislation was maintained and on 10 January 2008, the European Court of Justice acting on a complaint lodged by the Commission ruled that Portugal should pay a fine of €19,392 for each day the first ruling was not implemented. In the meantime, on 31 December 2007, Portugal adopted a law (No. 67/2007) to comply with the 2004 ruling but the Commission considered that this legislation was not an adequate measure for executing the ruling. Portugal therefore voted for an amending law (No. 31/2008), which entered into force on 18 July 2008. In opposition to the 2007 law, the Commission made a decision in November 2008 which demanded payment by Portugal of a fine of € 3,665,088 for the period from 10 January 2008 (the date of the second ruling) to 17 July 2008, the date of the entry into force of the amending law. Portugal contested this decision because it considered that it had been in compliance with the 2004 ruling since 30 January 2008, the date the 2007 law was applied.
The General Court annulled the Commission decision, because it regarded that in the context of executing the 2008 decision, this was not sufficient for deciding that Law No. 67/2007 did not comply with Union law and resulting in the subsequent fine calculated by the European Court of Justice. Insofar as it considers that the legal regime introduced by this law does not constitute correct transposition of Union law, the Commission should have introduced a new infringement procedure. (F.G./transl.fl)