Recovery obligation: The ECJ confirms that a Member State, which has not challenged a negative decision, may not raise the illegality of this decision as a plea of defence in an action for failure to fulfil its obligations lodged by the Commission on the grounds of the lack of enforcement of the decision (Salzgitter AG)

*This article is an automatic translation of the original article, provided here for your convenience. Read the original article. – ECJ, 22 April 2008, Commission v. Salzgitter AG and Federal Republic of Germany, case C-408/04 P By its appeal, which falls within the framework of the former rules under the ECSC Treaty applicable until July 2002, the European Commission sought the annulment of the judgment of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities in Case T 308/00 Salzgitter v Commission [2004] ECR I-1049, in which the Court of First Instance of the European Communities held that the Commission had failed to fulfil its obligations under the ECSC Treaty. II 1933, hereinafter 'the contested judgment'), by which the Court of First Instance annulled in part its Decision