The Court of Justice of the European Union has partially upheld the action brought by the European Commission against Spain for failure to fulfil its obligations to compensate individuals for damage caused by breaches of EU law, in a judgment handed down on Tuesday 28 June (case C-278/20).
According to the Commission, Spanish liability law (Articles 32 and 34 of Law 40/2015 on the legal regime of the public sector) does not sufficiently guarantee the principle of effectiveness, i.e. the possibility for a citizen to obtain compensation for damage suffered due to the violation of EU law.
In its judgment, the Court found in favour of the Commission.
Spanish law is indeed too restrictive in that it makes compensation for damage caused only: (1) provided that there is a decision of the Court of Justice of the EU declaring the incompatibility of Spanish law with Union law; (2) provided that the injured party has obtained, before any court, a final decision rejecting an appeal against the administrative act that caused the damage, without providing for an exception for cases in which the damage is the direct result of an act or omission of the legislator or in which there is no administrative act that can be challenged; (3) with a limitation period of 1 year from the publication in the Official Journal of the EU of the decision of the Court declaring the incompatibility of the national norm with Union law, without covering cases in which no such decision exists; (4) where only damage that occurred within 5 years prior to the date of that publication may be compensated, unless otherwise provided for in the decision.
On the other hand, the Court does not accept the argument that Spanish law infringes the principle of equivalence, according to which the conditions laid down for the law of a Member State to compensate for damage caused in breach of EU law cannot be less favourable than the conditions laid down for similar domestic claims.
See the judgment: https://aeur.eu/f/2cw (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)