Brussels, 29/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 29 April, the European Commission decided to send Italy to the European Court of Justice for failing to fully recover €15 million in unlawful state aid to the hotel industry in Sardinia.
The European Commission wants the Court of Justice to find Italy guilty a second time because it has only recovered €2 million of the state aid issued by the autonomous region of Sardinia, which a first European Court of Justice ruling (Case C-243/10) ruled was unlawfully granted. The delays in recovering the aid are due to decisions by the Italian justice system that suspended recovery orders issued by the civil service. The Commission says that the many of these suspensions do not comply with the strict conditions laid down by EU case law.
The Commission therefore requests that the Court impose on Italy a lump sum penalty of about €20 million, in addition to a daily penalty payment of about €160,000 until Italy has fully recovered the aid and thereby ended the infringement. (Mathieu Bion)