Brussels, 22/01/2002 (Agence Europe) - Instructed by the Commission to recover tax breaks from the banking sector, Italy's Finance Minister, Giulio Tremonti, has announced that his country is planning to appeal to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, commenting after a financial meeting in Brussels that "We are working on it… and the government will appeal to the European Court. Obviously interested parties can also participate (in that process)". On 11 December 2001, the Commission ruled that the 1998 and 1999 Italian laws offering tax breaks to banks that merged or restructured was incompatible with EU state aid legislation since they gave the banks an unfair competitive advantage. Italy was instructed to recover the value of these incentives, up to EUR 2.8 billion.