Commissie daagt Italië voor Hof van Justitie vanwege illegale staatssteun (en)

The European Commission has decided to refer Italy to the Court of Justice for failing to comply with a Commission decision of 14 December 2004 (see IP/04/1494 ) declaring tax incentives in favour of companies taking part in trade fairs abroad incompatible with the Single Market and ordering their recovery from the recipients. More than three years after the decision, the Italian authorities have not yet achieved an effective and immediate execution of the recovery order.

Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said "Companies who have received illegal state aid have an unfair advantage over competitors who have not been granted such aid. To restore equal conditions between competitors, such aid has to be repaid in full."

This approach is in line with the State Aid Action Plan presented by the Commission in June 2005 (see IP/05/680 and MEMO/05/195 ), which advocates, among other things, a close monitoring and follow-up of the Commission's decisions to ensure effective and credible state aid control.

On 14 December 2004 the Commission found an aid scheme adopted by Italy in the form of direct tax incentives in favour of companies taking part in trade fairs abroad incompatible with EU state aid rules and ordered Italy to recover the illegal and incompatible aid from the beneficiaries. The Italian authorities issued recovery injunctions to the identified beneficiaries and the aid has been partially paid back. However, all outstanding payment injunctions have been appealed and, in several cases, national courts decided to suspend their execution.

Against this background, the Commission concluded that the measures adopted by the Italian authorities were not sufficiently effective to ensure compliance with the negative Commission decision in this case.

The suspension of the execution of payment orders by national courts is a common feature in several Italian recovery proceedings that significantly delays the recovery process. Hence, the Commission has decided to refer Italy to the Court already in three cases for failure to comply with a recovery decision (see IP/06/77 , IP/06/1040 and IP/07/648 ).

More information on these cases will be available under the case numbers CR 57/2003 , CR 12/2004 , CR 8/2004 and CR 81/1997

in the State Aid Register on the DG Competition website. New publications of state aid decisions on the internet and in the Official Journal are listed in the State Aid Weekly e-News .