13First, the Commission did not observe the pre-litigation procedure, as required by Article 226 EC. Contrary to the requirements derived from the Court's case-law (see, in particular, Case C-96/95 Commission v Germany [1997] ECR I-1653, paragraphs 22 and 24, and Case C-328/96 Commission v Austria [1999] ECR I-7479, paragraph 34), the reasoned opinion, of only seven sentences, did not contain either a complete exposition of the facts or a detailed and cogent legal analysis of the subject-matter of the dispute, but essentially simply repeated the contents of the letter of formal notice.
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