Judgment_paragraph 45 · European Commission v Romania (C-549/18)

45As regards the scope of Article 260(3) TFEU, the Court has held that that provision had to be interpreted in a manner which, on the one hand, allows prerogatives held by the Commission for the purposes of ensuring the effective application of EU law and protecting the rights of the defence and the procedural position enjoyed by the Member States under Article 258 TFEU, read in conjunction with Article 260(2) TFEU, to be guaranteed, and, on the other, puts the Court in a position of being able to exercise its judicial function of determining, in a single set of proceedings, whether the Member State in question has fulfilled its obligations to notify the measures transposing the directive in question and, where relevant, assess the seriousness of the declared failure and impose the financial penalty which it considers to be the most suited to the circumstances of the case (judgment of 8 July 2019, Commission v Belgium (Article 260(3) TFEU — High-speed networks), C‑543/17, EU:C:2019:573, paragraph 58).