57It must be observed, in the first place, that the element unifying the Court’s reasoning in all of the judgments concerning access to documents in investigation procedures in which a general presumption of refusal of access was recognised is that access is wholly incompatible with the proper conduct of those procedures and is likely to jeopardise their outcome (see, to that effect, the Opinion in LPN v Commission, cited in paragraph 28 above, paragraph 68). That unifying element is equally applicable to EU Pilot procedures, in which a general presumption is, essentially, dictated by the need to ensure the proper conduct of such procedures and to ensure that their purpose is not undermined. The Commission relied on that same premiss in the contested decision when it explained that it was necessary in an EU Pilot procedure for there to be an atmosphere of mutual trust between the Commission and the Member State concerned in order to enable them to start a process of negotiation and compromise with a view to an amicable settlement of the dispute, without it being necessary to initiate an infringement procedure under Article 258 TFEU, which would be likely to lead to the dispute being brought before the Court.
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