288In the second place, as regards the alleged lack of precision in the criteria applicable to the conditions for initiating the procedure and the choice and scope of the measures to be adopted, it follows from a combined reading of Article 4 and Article 6(1) of the contested regulation that, as has been stated in paragraph 125 above, the Commission may initiate that procedure only where it finds that there are reasonable grounds for considering that at least one of the principles of the rule of law referred to in Article 2(a) of that regulation has been breached in a Member State, that that breach concerns at least one of the situations attributable to an authority of a Member State or at least one instance of conduct of such authorities referred to in Article 4(2) of that regulation, in so far as those situations or that conduct is relevant to the sound financial management of the Union budget or for the protection of the Union’s financial interests, and that that breach affects or risks seriously affecting that sound management or those financial interests, in a sufficiently direct way, by a real link between those breaches and that effect or serious risk of effect.
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