Judgment_paragraph 59 · Federal Republic of Germany v European Commission (T-28/16)

59The Court must also reject the German authorities’ claim that there was a failure to state reasons with regard to the Commission’s complaint relating to the unlawful pre-selection of applications for financing. In the particular context of the preparation of decisions relating to the clearance of the CAP’s accounts, the statement of reasons for a decision must be regarded as sufficient if the Member State to which the decision was addressed was sufficiently involved in the process by which the decision came about and was aware of the reasons for which the Commission took the view that it must not charge the sum in dispute to the EAGF or the EAFRD (see, to that effect, judgment of 13 December 1990, Netherlands v Commission, C‑22/89, EU:C:1990:471, paragraph 18). The German authorities participated in the conciliation procedure under Article 16 of Regulation No 885/2006, prior to the adoption of the contested decision, in such a way that they were closely involved in the process by which that decision came about and that they were aware of the reasons why the Commission did not consider that it had to charge the contested sums to the EAFRD because of an illegal selection of the projects during the first two stages of the procedure of land consolidation and village renewal as implemented in Bavaria.