The European Court of Justice (ECJ) judges imposed a fine of €10 million and a biannual penalty payment of almost €7.3 million on Greece on Wednesday 14 November (Case C-93/17) for failure to recover illegal state aid granted to Ellinika Nafpigeia AE (ENAE).
ENAE is involved in the construction of military vessels. It was acquired by a bank controlled by the Greek State in 1985, privatised in 2001 before being taken over by ThyssenKrupp AG in 2005 and Abu Dhabi Mar LLC in 2009.
The company benefited from several aid measures granted by the Greek State from 1996 to 2003, which the Commission found to be contrary to EU law in 2008.
In the context of an agreement with the institution, Athens and ENAE were to reconsider the content of this decision subject to compliance with several commitments. Considering that Greece had not complied with them, the Commission brought an action against the Hellenic Republic before the ECJ in 2010. On 28 June 2012 the court held that Athens had failed to fulfil its obligations.
The Commission subsequently sent a letter of formal notice to the Greek authorities in 2014, criticising them for not having complied with the judgment and ordering them to comply before 27 January 2015. Athens has not recovered the sums due and the Commission therefore brought an action before the ECJ in 2017 for failure to comply with the 2012 judgment. Incidentally, some of the commitments were fulfilled in June 2018.
In their judgment, the judges found that, on 27 January 2015, Athens had failed to comply with its obligations to take the measures imposed under the 2012 judgment and that this failure persisted until the facts were analysed by the court in its second judgement.
They therefore decided to impose financial penalties on the Greek State, which they calculated on the basis of several criteria. As a result, the country must pay a lump sum of €10 million into the EU budget as well as a biannual penalty payment of €7.294 for their delay in implementing the measures necessary to comply with the 2012 judgment, as of today. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)