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The extended panel of judges of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania (SACL) made a reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) by the order of 10 July 2015 for a preliminary ruling in the case of the repayment of structural assistance considered as ineligible.

The subject matter of the administrative proceedings is the dispute concerning the use of structural assistance, i.e. on the orders of the defendant the Director of the Environmental Projects Management Agency which identifies that the applicant “Alytus region waste management facility” misused certain part of EU funds and he was being ordered to repay those sums.

It has been established that by the decision of 13 December 2001 the European Commission gave its support for the project “Creation of waste management system of Alytus region”. The extended panel of judges stated that part 1 Article 3 of Council Regulation No 2988/95 of 18 December 1995 on the protection of the financial interests of the European Communities, which provides the period of four years for proceedings, is relevant to the present dispute. Further, this Article lays down the rule that “in the case of multiannual programmes, the limitation period shall in any case run until the programme is definitely terminated”. The extended panel of judges had doubts whether the project of the dispute, which is being financed by the decision of the European Commission, is to be considered the multiannual programme in accordance with the part 1 Article 3 of Council Regulation No 2988/95.

The extended panel of judges of the Court emphasised that the aforementioned regulation does not determine directly the concept of “multiannual programme”; moreover, this fact is not as well revealed in the case-law of the CJEU. Therefore, it was found that there has been a need to refer the matter to the CJEU on the uniform interpretation and application of EU law. The Court requested the CJEU to clarify what can be considered as multiannual programme for the purposes of the aforementioned Regulation; whether the project at issue can be considered such multiannual programme; and if the answer to the latter question is the affirmative, at what point in time the starting date of the limitation period embedded in part 1 Article 3 of the Regulation No 2988/95 should be calculated.

For more information see the website of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania www.lvat.lt Case No A-1425-858-2015. Please indicate the source of information when quoting or otherwise using the latter material.