Brussels, 01/07/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 1 July, the Court of Justice of the Communities overturned a Commission decision requiring Germany to recover €572 million (DM1.1 billion) from Die Deutsche Post AG. The reason for the decision of June 2002 (2002/753/EC) was so-called cross subsidies, but the Court decided that the Commission had not taken account of the arguments advanced by Deutsche Post (case T-266/02).
In particular, the Court found for the German postal company, which argued that the Commission had failed to fulfil its obligation to determine whether the total amount of the transfer payments made by DB-Telekom was higher than the total amount of net additional costs associated with fulfilling its mandate to provide a service of general economic interest. The Court agreed, and found against the Commission for not assessing the amounts concerned to check the validity of the Deutsche Post argument. The Court checked for itself and concluded that the costs incurred by Deutsche Post were higher even than the state aid it received. The Court pointed out, too, that the Commission had not provided evidence for its claim that Die Deutsche Post AG had used this money to fund its high-speed messaging activities, which was open to competition, and not the universal postal service in Germany.
In a press release, Die Deutsche Post expressed pleasure that its appeal had been successful and that it would recover the aid which it had, in the meantime, repaid to the Treasury. The company stressed that it would prefer to keep this amount to return it to its shareholders. The preliminary reimbursement in 2003 comprised €572 million in aid and €335 million in interest. Interest will also be added when this sum is returned to the group, so over €1 billion will be paid out. (C.D./transl.rt)