Judgment_paragraph 67 · Kingdom of Spain v Commission of the European Communities (C-113/00)

67Nevertheless, the difference in wording between Article 87(3)(a) EC and Article 87(3)(c) EC cannot lead to the conclusion that the Commission should take no account of the Community interest when applying Article 87(3)(a), and that it must confine itself to verifying the specifically regional impact of the measures involved, without assessing their impact on the relevant market or markets in the Community as a whole. In such cases the Commission is bound not only to verify that the measures are such as to contribute effectively to the economic development of the regions concerned, but also to evaluate the impact of the aid on trade between Member States, and in particular to assess the sectorial repercussions they may have at Community level. As the Court has already held, Article 87(3) EC gives the Commission a discretion the exercise of which involves economic and social assessments which must be made in a Community context (see, inter alia, Case 730/79 Philip Morris v Commission [1980] ECR 2671, paragraph 24; Case 310/85 Deufil v Commission [1987] ECR 901, paragraph 18; and Spain v Commission, cited above, paragraph 18).