Judgment_paragraph 79 · Kronofrance SA v Commission of the European Communities (T-27/02)

79It must be borne in mind at the outset that although the Commission, for the purposes of applying Article 87(3) EC, enjoys a wide discretion, the exercise of which involves assessments of an economic and social nature which must be made within a Community context, it may adopt a policy as to how it will exercise its discretion in the form of measures such as guidelines, in so far as those measures contain rules indicating the approach which the institution is to take and do not depart from the rules of the Treaty (Case C-288/96 Germany v Commission [2000] ECR I-8237, paragraph 62, and Case C-310/99 Italy v Commission [2002] ECR I-2289, paragraphs 45 and 52). When the Commission adopts guidelines which are consistent with the Treaty and are designed to specify the criteria which it intends to apply in the exercise of its discretion, it itself limits that discretion in that it must comply with the indicative rules which it has imposed upon itself (Case T-380/94 AIUFFASS and AKT v Commission [1996] ECR II-2169, paragraph 57, and Case T-214/95 Vlaams Gewest v Commission [1998] ECR II-717, paragraph 89). In that context, it is for the Court to verify whether those rules have been observed by the Commission (Case T-35/99 Keller and Keller Meccanica v Commission [2002] ECR II-261, paragraph 77).