—

The applicant submits that the contested decision, and in particular its recital 13, Article 1(3), and Annex III, infringes Article 10a(1) of Directive 2003/87/EC and Annex 1 to Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/331. The product benchmark for sintered ore set out in Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/331 must be interpreted in conformity with Directive 2003/87/EC, the treaties and general principles of EU law. According to that Directive and case-law, substitute products and alternative production methods should be included under the same product benchmark, in order to promote the most climate-efficient technologies. As demonstrated by the evidence submitted, sintered iron ore pellets and sintered iron ore fines are immediate substitutes for each other. By refusing the inclusion of the applicant’s sintered pellets production installations under the benchmark, it is argued that the Commission misapplied Directive 2003/87/EC and Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/331 and made a manifest error of assessment.

—

The contested decision, it is argued, infringes the cited principles by discriminating between companies and sectors in such a way as to unduly favour certain undertakings. This concerns both the treatment of sintered fines versus sintered pellets production, and the treatment of the applicant’s pellet production versus other pellet production.

—

With its third plea in law, the applicant submits that the contested decision is contrary to the explicit commitments made by the EU in its nationally determined contribution under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

—

The contested decision reflects a policy position adopted by the European Commission which is, the applicant maintains, not grounded in an objective in-depth technical assessment on the substitutability of the products and techniques in question, but which instead merely relies on the claims by one of the parties affected by the determination, namely a steel industry organisation, without evaluating the technical objections raised by, inter alia, the applicant and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, or consulting any neutral third party.

—

The contested decision has, according to the applicant, failed to provide the slightest explanation regarding the technical substitutability between sintered pellets and sintered fines or of the application of the principle of equal treatment, but instead refers merely to the benchmark being ‘tailored to’ exclude (the applicant’s) sintered pellets production. As a result, it is impossible for persons concerned to ascertain the reasons for the determination from the decision itself.

—

By its sixth plea, which is alternative to the pleas above, the applicant submits that, if Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/331 must be interpreted to exclude the applicant’s sintered pellets (but not the sintered pellets of a named competing producer), (4) that Regulation itself must be declared invalid, by being in breach of Directive 2003/87/EC and general principles of EU law.