Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1. Commission ° Exercise of powers ° Delegation of authority to sign

(Commission' s Rules of Procedure, Art. 27)

2. Social policy ° European Social Fund ° Financial assistance for vocational training operations ° Decision to reduce assistance initially granted ° Rights of the defence of the undertakings concerned ° Scope

3. Acts of the institutions ° Statement of reasons ° Duty ° Scope ° Commission decision reducing European Social Fund assistance for a vocational training operation

(EEC Treaty, Art. 190)

Summary

1. The delegation of authority to sign within an institution is a measure relating to the internal organization of the Community' s administrative departments. It is in accordance with Article 27 of the Commission' s Rules of Procedure and is the normal means by which the Commission exercises its powers. Officials may therefore be empowered to take, in the name of the Commission and subject to its control, clearly defined measures of management or administration.

2. Respect for the rights of the defence in all proceedings which are initiated against a person and are liable to culminate in a measure adversely affecting that person is a fundamental principle of Community law which must be guaranteed, even in the absence of any specific rules concerning the proceedings in question. That principle requires that any person who may be adversely affected by the adoption of a decision should be placed in a position in which he may effectively make known his views on the evidence against him which the Commission has taken as the basis for the decision at issue.

That is so in the case of recipients of European Social Fund assistance for a vocational training operation in a Member State, where the Commission proposes to reduce the assistance initially granted on the ground that it has not been used in accordance with the conditions laid down in the decision of approval. The fact that the Member State concerned is the sole interlocutor of the ESF and the addressee of any decision to reduce assistance does not preclude there being a direct link between the Commission and the recipient of the assistance, which is directly affected by the economic consequences of the reduction, since it has primary liability for the repayment of the sums paid without warrant.

Consequently, it is an infringement of the recipient' s rights of defence for a decision to reduce assistance to have been adopted when the recipient had not been notified of the reports of the Commission' s inquiry into the conditions in which the assisted training operations were being carried out, or the Commission' s complaints against it, and had not been heard by the Commission before it adopted the decision, and where having been invited by the Commission to submit its observations on the proposed reduction, the national authority in charge of supervising the relevant matters informed the Commission, without first hearing the recipient, that it would accept that decision.

3. A Commission decision reducing financial assistance from the European Social Fund initially granted for a vocational training operation, which has serious consequences for the recipient organization, must clearly show the grounds which justify a reduction of the amount of assistance initially authorized. The requirement to state reasons laid down in Article 190 of the Treaty is not satisfied when a decision to reduce assistance relating to various operations carried out by different organizations does not identify, with respect to each of them, the items to which the reduction relates and clearly state the reasons which led the Commission to reduce, for each of them, the assistance granted.