81The Court of First Instance held as follows in the contested judgment:166 Under Article 92(3)(b) of the Treaty, aid may be considered to be compatible with the common market if it is “[...] to remedy a serious disturbance in the economy of a Member State”.167 It follows from the context and general scheme of that provision that the disturbance in question must affect the whole of the economy of the Member State concerned, and not merely that of one of its regions or parts of its territory. This, moreover, is in conformity with the need to interpret strictly a derogating provision such as Article 92(3)(b) of the Treaty. The judgment in [Case 730/79 Philip Morris v Commission [1980] ECR 2671], relied on by the applicants in support of their argument, makes no comment of any kind on the point at issue here.168 The applicants' argument must therefore be rejected as inoperative since they merely refer to the state of the economy of the Free State of Saxony, without even alleging that this caused a serious disturbance of the economy in the Federal Republic of Germany as a whole.169 Moreover, the question whether German reunification has caused a serious disturbance in the economy of the Federal Republic of Germany involves complex assessments of an economic and social nature, to be made within a Community context, which fall within the exercise of the wide discretion which the Commission enjoys under Article 92(3) of the Treaty (see, by analogy, Case C-355/95 P TWD v Commission [1997] ECR I-2549, paragraph 26). In that context, judicial review must be limited to verifying whether the rules on procedure and the statement of reasons have been complied with, that the facts are materially accurate, and that there has been no manifest error of assessment and no misuse of powers. In particular, it is not for the Community judicature to substitute its economic assessment for that of the Commission (Case T-380/94 AIUFFASS and AKT v Commission [1996] ECR II-2169, paragraph 56; Case T-149/95 Ducros v Commission [1997] ECR II-2031, paragraph 63).170 In this case, the applicants have not put forward any concrete evidence capable of establishing that the Commission made a manifest error of assessment in taking the view that the unfavourable repercussions of the reunification of Germany on the German economy, however real, did not in themselves constitute a ground for applying Article 92(3)(b) of the Treaty to an aid scheme.171 As for the statement of reasons for the [contested decision], although brief, it appears to be sufficient having regard to the context of the case, to its antecedents, especially the Mosel I decision, and to the absence of specific arguments raised during the administrative procedure. In that regard, the considerations set out in paragraphs 140 to 142 and 149 to 156 above apply, mutatis mutandis, as regards the statement of reasons for the Commission's refusal to apply in this case the derogation laid down in Article 92(3)(b) of the Treaty.172 It follows from the above that the complaints alleging infringement of Article 92(3)(b) of the Treaty and an insufficient statement of reasons must be rejected.’
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