Luxembourg, 09/07/2003 (Agence Europe) - The proceeding brought by the Region of Sicily against the European Commission, in order to recover EUR 58 million under the European Regional Development Funds for building parts of the Messina-Palermo motorway is at the stage of written procedure. The region of Sicily is asking for the cancellation of the 5 September 2002 decision on closing the major "Autostrada Messina Palermo" project, funded in part from the FEDR. With this decision, the Commission closed the intervention procedure for funds, considering that certain spending on the already finished batches were ineligible. The Commission concluded that if there had been a an amount available from FEDR of EUR 26.5 million, an amount of EUR 58 million could have been recovered.
The Region of the Marches has claimed at the Court of First Instance that the company Marche Capital, had benefited from an integrated Mediterranean programmes loan that no longer exists (IMP) and had the right to the totality of funding included in an agreement between the region and the company with the approval b the Commission.