Luxembourg, 20/02/2004 (Agence Europe) - The appeal made by the Netherlands against a Commission decision authorising the Netherlands to pay subsidies to processors and collectors of dredging soil is inadmissible as the decision in no way changes the legal situation of the Netherlands.
The First Chamber of the European Court of Justice, presided by Austrian Judge Peter Jann, came to this decision. It rules that the European Commission is right in saying that it sees no inconvenience caused to the Netherlands by such a "positive" decision.
The thing that the Netherlands found to its disadvantage was that the Commission, in the body of the decision, described certain port authorities as "enterprises" in the meaning of the treaty and the dredging operations that could be undertaken by these same port authorities as "economic activities". Given these descriptions, the Dutch government said it should in future notify the Commission of all financial contribution made to ports, which would be a considerable inconvenience in redtape and procedures. The Court answers this by saying: the Commission's decision simply evokes the case in which port authorities carry out economic activities in the dredging soil sector. It in no way prejudges the description that the European Commission could give of other financial contributions granted to the Dutch ports.
On 15 February 2002, the Commission stated in its decision that it had no objection to make against this series of measures. In the Commission's view, most of the amounts granted were not aid and, when they were aid, they were compatible with the common market (protection of the environment).
Processing companies and dredging soil collectors benefit from government aid notified to the Commission under the name of the draft regulation for encouraging dredging soil processing. In the Netherlands, sand and alluvium is deposited in the estuaries of the Rhine, the Meuse and the Escaut. The mud is polluted, but once it has been dredged it is reused in building materials after processing.
Court not always as categorical?
Observers comment that it would seem the Court has not always been categorical in rejecting an appeal by a Member State against a "positive" decision as inadmissible. On 26 September 1996 in a France versus the Commission case on aid to Kimberley Clark Sopalain, the Court, in eleven-judge formation, had taken a stance on aid from the French government granted to the Kimberley Clark Sopalain company and authorised by the Commission. Implicitly, the Court had therefore declared this appeal admissible, the observers note.
Netherlands continues: nitrogen oxide
The Netherlands continues to scrutinise the decisions that authorise it to pay out aid. It now attacks the decision by the Commission on 26 June 2003, authorising it to apply its so-called "traded emission rights for nitrogen oxide" (in the context of the reductions of emissions from major industrial installations, European Directive 23 October 2001).
The Commission authorises this system saying that it is a matter of aid but aid that is compatible with the common market as it makes a valid contribution to the Community policy on the environment. The Dutch government welcomes the fact that the European Commission had not objected to its system, that it had notified it to it simply because it wished to set its mind at rest. As there was no aid for the Netherlands. Hence its appeal against this decision, which, it said, is not based on explicit and sound motivation.