Brussels, 21/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 17 November, the Court of Justice of the EU agreed with the requests of the European Commission to condemn Italy (Case C-496/09) to a daily fine and the payment of a fixed sum as the country failed to recover, in full and within the deadline laid down as it was obliged to do by a previous ruling of 2004, state aid ruled illegal and incompatible with the single market.
In a decision of 11 May 1999, the Commission ordered Italy to recover employment aid granted to businesses since 1995, unless the aid complied with the following strict criteria: - the creation of new jobs for the unemployed or workers seeking a first job; - the recruitment of young people under the age of 25 or holders of a university degree (laurea) aged up to 29, and people who have been unemployed for more than a year; - net job creation in the case of aid to transform training and work contracts into permanent contracts. When Italy brought the case before the Court of Justice in 2002, it confirmed the Commission's decision and, following actions for failure to comply brought by the Commission, ruled against Italy (on 1 April 2004) for its failure to take all the measures required within the stated timeframe to recover the aid which was granted illegally, by ordering it to be recovered in full by no later than 1 February 2008. Since then, further to several requests by the Commission, Italy has submitted details of the sums recovered and those still to be recovered. However, as it has not recovered all of the legal aid, the Commission brought the matter before the Court a second time in 2009, asking it to order Italy to pay fines (a penalty plus a fixed daily late payment fine starting from the deadline laid down in the 2004 ruling).
In its infringement ruling returned on Thursday, the Court notes the persistence of the breach, more than seven years after the first ruling. However, it takes the view that it is appropriate to impose a degressive penalty, on the basis of the progress which may have been made by Italy in recovering the contested aid and with regard to the specific circumstances of the case. It has therefore ordered Italy to pay a fixed sum of €30 million and a penalty “of an amount calculated by multiplying the basic amount of €30 million by the percentage of the unlawful aid” that has not yet been recovered, “from the present judgment until compliance with the judgment of 1 April 2004”. (FG/transl.fl)