Brussels, 19/07/2006 (Agence Europe) - France has been referred to the Court of Justice for failing to comply with a Commission decision of 2 August 2004 concerning France Télécom. This decision declared the preferential treatment of France Télécom under the French business tax regime incompatible with the Single Market and ordered France to recover the aid already granted. Given that Paris has still not taken any concrete, effective steps to recover the aid the European Commission decided to refer France to the Court of Justice. In its August 2004 decision, the Commission defined the aid to be recovered as the difference between the amount of business tax that France Télécom would have had to pay if the normal business tax law had been applied and the amount of business tax actually paid by France Télécom. As at the time of the decision it was not possible to quantify precisely the aid, the decision indicated that France Télécom benefited from state aid, “the indicative amount of which is somewhere between €798 and €1140 million in capital...”. The decision further stated that the exact amount of aid to be recovered should be determined by the Commission in cooperation with the French authorities in the course of the recovery proceedings. On Wednesday a Commission spokesperson explained that France has rejected all of the Commission's proposals and has not submitted any alternative proposal acceptable to the Commission for calculating the amount of aid to be recovered.