Brussels, 29/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission decided, on Wednesday, to open an investigation into the State aids granted by Italy in favour of 36 agricultural food companies located in Venetia. At this stage, the Commission is questioning whether these aids for the processing and marketing of agricultural products (requested by these companies between 1994 and 1999) are not in fact operating aid that contravenes Community legislation. According to information available, the Commission cannot exclude that this concerns aid granted, with retroactive effect, for activities already undertaken by the beneficiary and which thus do not present the incentive components required and should have been considered as an operating aid since its sole aim would be to free the beneficiary of a financial burden. For the Commission, the potential beneficiaries had not received any message of the acceptance of their request for financing by the region of Venetia, the only document they had was the postal receipt for their projects. Given that the producers from this region would have freely decided to bear the additional spending in question in the absence of aids, the need for these subsidises the carry out the projects is highly doubtful. Before taking a final decision, the Commission invites those concerned to present their observations and to provide any useful information for the assessment of this aid.