Administrative disputes. Annulment of decisions on payment claims for area support schemes and of the minutes of the finding of irregularities and establishment of budgetary claims. Priority application of Union law

DREPT ADMINISTRATIV ŞI DREPT FISCAL

Abstract

The areas in question are agricultural, since they were actually used as 'arable land', which is clear from all the documentation relating to the payment claims and which, moreover, has not been contested by the respondent in the present case. The interpretation given by the CJEU in its judgment in Case C294/19 holds that it is not permissible under European law to make the eligibility of land conditional on a change in its category of use. The classification of the land cannot be called into question by the mere fact that such an area has been used as arable land in breach of national land classification provisions.

The priority of Union law operates in relation to all national rules and requires all Member States' bodies, including constitutional courts, to leave any national rule, even of a constitutional nature, unapplied in the event of a conflict with a rule of EU law. Therefore, even if under national law certain land register or cadastre formalities would have been required in order to change the category of use of the land, given the definitions of eligible hectare in the Regulations to which I have referred, as interpreted by the CJEU, by virtue of the priority application of EU law, the court is obliged to set aside the national provisions and give priority to the European ones.