Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1. State aid ° Definition ° Preferential natural gas tariff favouring a particular category of undertakings justified on commercial grounds ° Not included

(EC Treaty, Art. 92(1))

2. State aid ° Commission decision finding a national measure to be compatible with Article 92(1) of the Treaty ° Complex economic appraisal ° Review by the Court ° Limits

(EC Treaty, Art. 92(1))

3. State aid ° Treaty provisions ° Scope ° State financial intervention affecting competition and trade between Member States, irrespective of the aims pursued

(EC Treaty, Art. 92)

4. Acts of the institutions ° Statement of reasons ° Obligation ° Scope ° Account to be taken of their context and events prior to their adoption

(EC Treaty, Art. 190)

Summary

1. The charging by a Member State, or an entity on which it exerts influence, of a tariff fixed at a level lower than that which would normally be chosen may be regarded as aid for the purposes of Article 92(1) of the Treaty. In such circumstances, the State, or the entity on which it exerts influence, does not apply the preferential tariff as an ordinary economic agent but uses it to confer a financial advantage on certain undertakings by forgoing the profit which it would normally realize. On the other hand, a preferential tariff does not constitute aid if, in the context of the market in question, it is objectively justified by economic reasons such as the need to withstand competition on the same market.

A preferential tariff system for supplies of natural gas, made available by a Member State to very large industrial users in a given production sector, does not constitute State aid in so far as, first, that tariff is justified by the need to withstand competition from imports from non-member countries in order to retain important existing customers and, secondly, the frontier price made available to a natural gas distributor established in another Member State enables that distributor to grant a comparable tariff to very large industrial users belonging to the same production sector in the latter Member State.

2. In reviewing an act which has necessitated a complex economic appraisal, by which the Commission finds a national measure to be compatible with Article 92(1) of the Treaty, the Court must confine itself to verifying whether the relevant rules governing procedure and the statement of reasons were complied with, whether the facts on which the contested finding was based have been accurately stated and whether there has been any manifest error of assessment or a misuse of powers.

3. Article 92 of the Treaty does not treat measures of State financial intervention in terms of their causes or aims, but in terms of their effects on competition and trade between Member States. Consequently, where a practice attributable to a Member State is objectively justified on commercial grounds, the mere fact that it also furthers a political aim does not mean that it constitutes State aid.

4. The statement of reasons required by Article 190 of the Treaty must be appropriate to the act at issue and must disclose in a clear and unequivocal fashion the reasoning followed by the institution which adopted the measure in question in such a way as to enable the persons concerned to ascertain the reasons for the measure and to enable the Court to carry out its review. It is not necessary for the reasoning to go into all the relevant facts and points of law, since the question whether the statement of reasons meets the requirements of Article 190 of the Treaty must be assessed with regard not only to its wording but also to its context and to all the legal rules governing the matter in question.

In cases where a decision of the Commission finding a national measure to be compatible with Article 92(1) of the Treaty has been preceded by another Commission decision concerning the same arrangements, by a judgment of the Court, supplemented by the Advocate General' s Opinion, annulling that decision, and by a communication from the Commission ° to which reference is made in the decision in question ° reopening the procedure under Article 93(2) of the Treaty, account should be taken of those prior events in order to assess whether an adequate statement of reasons for the decision has been provided.