62The Court pointed out in that context that that service owes a general obligation of diligence when verifying the legality of payments made by it that are borne by the European Union budget, given that the Member States must observe the obligation of general diligence under Article 4(3) EU, an obligation which entails that they must take steps to rectify irregularities promptly. In those circumstances, providing Member States with the possibility of granting the public service a much longer period within which to act than that laid down in the first subparagraph of Article 3(1) of Regulation No 2988/95 could, in a certain way, encourage inertia on the part of the national authorities in bringing proceedings in respect of ‘irregularities’ within the meaning of Article 1 of Regulation No 2988/95, whilst exposing operators, firstly, to a long period of legal uncertainty and, secondly, to the risk of no longer being in a position to prove at the end of such a period that the transactions in question were lawful (see, to that effect, judgment in Ze Fu Fleischhandel and Vion Trading, EU:C:2011:282, paragraphs 44 and 45).
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