Brussels, 27/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - The SNCM saga continues to roll on. French maritime transport company SNCM whose ferries plied between Corsica and the French mainland was on the brink of bankruptcy but received various forms of aid from the French state, which the Commission decided were illegal. In an opinion delivered on Thursday 26 March (case C-63/14), Advocate General Melchior Wathelet recommends that the Court of Justice of the EU rule against France which has failed to recover €220 million in aid in the form of compensation deemed illegal because it was paid to the company for “complementary service” and not for core service.
The Advocate General thus finds in favour of the Commission which, on May 2013, judged incompatible the compensation paid by the French state to the company for maritime transport services provided during the peak season (complementary service) and ordered the recovery of the money paid by 3 September. Since then, France and the company SNCM have called for this decision to be set aside by the General Court of the EU, which has still to deliver its ruling (cases T-366/13 and T-454/13).
Taking the view that these appeals did not have a suspensive effect, the Commission referred the case to the Court on the grounds that France had not recovered the money within the set deadline, that it had continued to pay the aid at issue for three months after being notified of the decision and that it had failed to inform the Commission within the set timescale (two months) of the measures it had taken to comply with the decision.
France argued that it was impossible to recover the aid, claiming that implementation of the decision would have brought the company to bankruptcy, leading to serious public disorder and risking disrupting territorial continuity between France and Corsica, thereby threatening supply to the island of basic necessities.
The Advocate General challenges that line of argument, taking the view that: - recovery of the aid would not ipso facto have led to the liquidation of SNCM, as France could have asked national courts to suspend the recovery to avoid serious and irreparable injury to SNCM; - furthermore, there was no shortage of company assets, thus making possible adoption of recovery measures; - France could use other means to assure the provision of supplies to the island (airlift, requisition of other transport companies, etc.). He also notes that France is not challenging that it continued to pay SNCM aid worth €6,130,160 per month for the three months following the Commission's decision and that it had failed to inform the Commission of the measures it had taken within two months.
He therefore recommends that the Court find France guilty of failing to meet its obligations. (Francesco Gariazzo)