Deeming that Germany granted unlawful state aid to certain large electricity users from 2012 to 2013 in the form of exemptions from network charges, the European Commission decided on Monday 28 May that Berlin must recover the amount corresponding to the unlawful aid.
Under a German law, between 2011 and 2013, electricity users that had an annual consumption above 10 gigawatt hours and particularly stable electricity consumption were fully exempted from paying network charges. In 2012, thanks to this provision, these users avoided paying an estimated €300 million in network charges.
Following the receipt of a number of complaints from civil society associations, the Commission opened an in-depth investigation on 6 March 2013 to determine whether the measure complied with EU law (see EUROPE 10800).
Considering the special tax as a state resource because the German authorities control the funds, the Commission says that the measure amounts to state aid for certain electricity users in 2012 and 2013, but not for 2011, because in that year the costs of the measure were financed by the network rather than by state resources.
The institution considers that the EU state aid rules do not justify any total exemption from network charges for certain electricity users, although a partial exemption could have been justified by Germany on the grounds of the low network costs generated by these users.
Berlin will now need to determine the amount of network charges generated by each beneficiary of the exemption using a methodology supplied by the Commission and then recover the illegal aid from each beneficiary. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)