Judgment_paragraph 99 · European Commission v Anthony Braesch and Others (C-284/21 P)

99Similarly, in circumstances where, in essence, a Member State had altered the conditions determining the identity of the persons eligible for a pre-existing aid scheme, which had allegedly resulted in a breach of the principle of equal treatment as regards certain economic operators, the Court rejected an argument that such a breach of the principle of equal treatment resulting from that alteration of the scheme could not, in any event, render unlawful the Commission decision approving that scheme, as altered (judgment of 15 April 2008, Nuova Agricast, C‑390/06, EU:C:2008:224, paragraphs 49 to 52). Indeed, such modalities, which determine the conditions of eligibility for an aid scheme, are also inseparable from the aid as such and are therefore among the factors which the Commission is required to examine and, as the case may be, to approve, with the result that, if such modalities lead to an infringement of general principles of EU law, a decision adopted by the Commission which authorises such a scheme is, in turn, necessarily rendered unlawful.