In a ruling intended to "make law", the European Court of Justice has established yesterday that "financial compensation that is merely the counterpart of public service obligations imposed by Member States do not have the characteristics of aid the state. "
The case involved a public transport service that a German district had given him, without tender and award of grants, the company Altmark. Hence the use of a competitor who believed the subsidies were to be considered state aid, and they were then - not having been notified to the Commission - are incompatible with EU rules. Shared this opinion by the Advocate General, whose opinion, that 4 out of 5 times is taken up by the Court, was rejected by the courts.
"For a government intervention may be state aid it must be considered as an advantage to the recipient that this would not have obtained under normal market conditions," the Court stated.
This is a decision destined to weigh heavily on the ongoing debate on the role of so-called services of general interest (SGI), or the services that public authorities make subject to special rules ritenedoli instrumental in achieving certain political objectives. To affect So on crucial sectors of the economy such as the identities of the network utilities (energy, water, telecommunications), postal services, transport, health, audiovisual, social services.
Debate revived on 21 May by the European Commission, with the publication of the Green Paper on services of general interest "in Brussels points out that today there is no Community definition of such services: each Member State is free to decide what constitutes" service of general interest ", a situation that has often produced conflict with European competition rules and internal market. The Commission notes the Green Paper as "a first step to evaluate possible Community Initiatives ": that is a directive that clarifies the situation. France, increasingly concerned by the objections that have recently arrived from Brussels, pressed a lot in this direction, with the goal of having rules istituzionalizzino definitely SGI, stating once and for all of its right to intervene in this area. The Commission, for its part, began to see a future directive as an instrument to secure stakes in a position to prevent abuse.
"We are not sad," said Commission spokesman Reijo Kamppinen "the sentence will clarify the relationship between SGI and state aid and to avoid distortions of competition." And indeed, if the court's decision meets some argue that it is legitimate for the SIG are, at least in part, removed from the free market, it sets strict conditions: a clear definition of public service, public subsidies which are actually related to the cost of those obligations and that this cost is determined by clear and objective criteria, especially if the service is awarded without tender. Viale Mazzini stuff that has made me shudder to many, you can bet.
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