Judgment_paragraph 69 · European Commission v Portuguese Republic (C-557/14)

69The Commission’s proposals concerning the penalty payment cannot bind the Court and constitute merely a useful point of reference. Similarly, guidelines such as those set out in the communications of the Commission are not binding on the Court but contribute to ensuring that the Commission’s own actions are transparent, foreseeable and consistent with legal certainty when that institution makes proposals to the Court. In proceedings under Article 260(2) TFEU relating to a failure to fulfil obligations on the part of a Member State that has persisted notwithstanding the fact that that same failure to fulfil obligations has already been established in a first judgment delivered under Article 226 EC or Article 258 TFEU, the Court must remain free to set the penalty payment to be imposed in an amount and in a form that the Court considers appropriate for the purposes of inducing that Member State to bring to an end its failure to comply with the obligations arising under that first judgment of the Court (judgment of 15 October 2015 in Commission v Greece, C‑167/14, EU:C:2015:684, paragraph 53 and the case-law cited).