Judgment_paragraph 83 · Kingdom of Spain and Others v European Commission (C-649/20 P)

83Since the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations and the principle of legal certainty are two separate principles, it should be noted that it was open to the General Court to examine separately the Kingdom of Spain’s arguments relating to those principles, even though they were presented together by the Kingdom of Spain. Such a separate examination of the arguments relied on does not in itself constitute a distortion of those arguments and cannot be criticised if it does not lead to a failure to reply to them. The Kingdom of Spain, which considers that that separate examination led to inconsistencies in the reasoning followed by the General Court in rejecting its plea, does not claim that the General Court failed to respond to its arguments.