Luxembourg, 02/12/2003 (Agence Europe) - The 'Musée Grévin' in Paris is challenging the European Commission decision of 8 July 2003 demanding that the company managing the celebrity waxwork museum reimburse a Community grant for the creation of a Grévin museum in Poland, a joint venture with a Polish company. This grant originates from the 'Joint Venture Phare Tacis' regional development programme.
The Grévin museum feels that the Commission decision is filled with inaccuracies, without legal basis and contrary to the principal of proportionality. It notes that the decision had been signed by a Head of Unit and by an administrator and not by the competent Commissioner. The result being that this decision is issued from an incompetent authority. It also challenges the use of English for the drafting of the decision, while the company is French. Thus, the Commission has acted in breach of a provision within Regulation N°1 of 1958 determining the languages to be used by the EC. Article 3 of this regulation provides that the texts sent by the institutions to a member state or to a person under the jurisdiction of a member state are drafted in the language of this state.
Following an investigation in the offices of the Grévin museum and an exchange of correspondence, the Commission decided that missing pieces of evidence and insufficient explanations justified its notifying the bank, acting as intermediary, of its desire to recoup the totality of the Community funds paid. It should be noted that the Grévin museum is a 'concept' present in many French towns (for example, there is a Grévin museum in Lourdes, and one in La Rochelle).