On Wednesday 15 September, the General Court of the European Union rejected (case no. T-777/19), an appeal by a cooperative of French fishermen-owners (CAPA) against the decision of the European Commission (C(2019) 5498 final) not to raise objections to aid granted by the French State for the construction of six wind farms in maritime areas used for fishing.
The European judges considered that the applicants could not be qualified as an “interested party” entitled to bring an action, since they had not shown that the contested subsidies - a purchase obligation at a rate higher than the market price with compensation of the additional cost by the State - were likely to have, in themselves, a concrete impact on their situation.
In order to challenge the authorisation of the aid, the applicants alleged an indirect competitive relationship between their activities and those of the aid beneficiaries, but the General Court rejected this argument, pointing out that the ‘raw material’ being exploited - fishery resources and wind kinetic energy respectively - is not the same in the two cases and that there was therefore no competitive relationship.
Furthermore, the applicants have not shown that the aid at issue could, in itself, have a concrete impact on their activity and economic results, so that they cannot consider themselves directly injured, which would give them standing to challenge the European Commission's decision.
Indeed, according to the judges, such an impact would be inherent to the decisions of the French authorities to set up wind farms and to the regulation of the public maritime space and the technical measures applicable to the said projects, but not to the State aid in itself granted to carry them out.
See the judgment of the General Court (in French): https://bit.ly/3tIewA0 (Original version in French by Francesco Gariazzo)