Brussels, 03/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - Following an in-depth investigation, the European Commission has concluded that a Belgian guarantee scheme for shareholders of financial cooperatives was incompatible with EU state aid rules. In particular, the guarantee conferred a selective advantage to the Belgian financial cooperative ARCO, the only beneficiary of the scheme, which now has to pay back the undue advantage it received.
The Belgian authorities contend that individual shareholders of...