The European Commission opened, on Thursday 6 February, an in-depth investigation to examine whether the tax treatment of operations at the landfill site in Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium, is in line with EU state aid rules.
Between 2005 and 2015, Renewi (Shanks until 2017), as operator of the Technical Landfill Centre (Centre d'Enfouissement Technique, C.E.T.) in Mont-Saint-Guibert, applied for and obtained several registrations and successive certificates of use from the public authorities allowing it to fill the landfill mainly with ‘fluffs’ (light shredder residue composed of plastics and other materials).
The Commission had received a complaint that these operations had been wrongly classified and taxed as waste recovery operations when in fact they constitute disposal operations. Thus, the Walloon authorities have allegedly violated certain provisions of European environmental legislation defining these two concepts.
Renewi would thus have paid lower amounts of regional tax than would have been payable if its activity had been treated as 'waste disposal', since recovery operations - considered less harmful to the environment - are subject to a reduced rate of the C.E.T. regional tax on waste disposal. This tax treatment could give Renewi a selective advantage over its competitors and could therefore constitute state aid within the meaning of EU rules. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)