Brussels, 02/09/2010 (Agence Europe) - Following the conclusions of the advocate general of the Court of Justice of the EU, on Thursday 2 September, the Court rejected the appeal made by the European Commission on 15 September 2008 against the judgement of the Court of First Instance (now the General Court) of 1 July 2008 (Case T-266/02), whereby the ruling had annulled decision 2002/753/EC of the same Commission (EUROPE 9694) ordering Germany to recover state aid amounting to €572 million from Deutsche Post AG.
The affair dates back to June 2002 when, while examining measures taken by Germany in favour of Deutsche Post AG (DPAG), the Commission felt that, within the framework of restructuring of the former German postal and telecommunications service administration, the company responsible for missions of general economic interest had obtained major compensation payments from state resources. Taking the view that DPAG had used public funding initially intended to compensate the cost of the universal service for carrying out a loss-making sales policy as part of its activity for sending postal packages (an area open to competition), the Commission had concluded that state aid was unlawful and had ordered Germany to recover the sum of €572 million from DPAG. This decision had been cancelled on 1 July 2008 by the General Court (EUROPE 9694), which had above all challenged the method used for verifying costs relating to public service obligations used by the Commission.
In appealing against the ruling, the Commission defended its method of analysis and its approach concluding in the existence of illegal state aid, reproaching the General Court for not having given the reasons for its conclusion regarding the inappropriate nature of the method used to come to that decision.
The Court ruled against the Commission appeal, saying in particular that the General Court was quite right to reproach the Commission for not having taken into account information provided by the Federal Republic of Germany concerning certain costs linked to the accomplishment of a mission to the service of general economic interest. If it had done so, the Commission would no doubt have come to a different conclusion, as it is precisely by taking into account such information that the Court of First Instance had itself reached a conclusion different to that reached in the decision under litigation. (F.G./transl.jl)