Keywords
Summary

Keywords

State aid - Concept - Cases where social charges are partially reduced, entailing exemptions from the financial charges arising from normal application of the general social security system - Covered - State measures intended to offset costs for undertakings arising as a result of collective agreements

(EC Treaty, Art. 92(1) (now, after amendment, Art. 87(1) EC))

Summary

$$The concept of aid encompasses advantages granted by public authorities which, in various forms, mitigate the charges normally included in the budget of an undertaking. A partial reduction of social charges devolving upon undertakings of a particular industrial sector constitutes aid within the meaning of Article 92(1) of the Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 87(1) EC) if that measure is intended partially to exempt those undertakings from the financial charges arising from the normal application of the general social security system, without there being any justification for this exemption on the basis of the nature or general scheme of this system. The social character of State assistance is not sufficient to exclude it outright from being categorised as aid for the purposes of Article 92.

Thus, State measures the object of which is the degressive reduction of employers' social security contributions for undertakings in a number of particular industrial sectors must be categorised as aid for the purposes of Article 92 of the Treaty, where they are intended to offset the costs arising as a result of agreements concluded between employers and trade unions, which the undertakings are bound to observe and which are included, by their nature, in their budgets.

As regards the assessment of those costs, agreements concluded by both sides of industry form a whole and cannot be evaluated by taking account, out of context, of only some of their positive or negative aspects for one or other party. In view of the variety of considerations which induce the two sides of industry to negotiate, and of the fact that the result of their negotiations is the fruit of a compromise for which each party makes concessions in certain areas in exchange for advantages in other areas, which are not necessarily related, it is in principle impossible to evaluate with the required accuracy the final cost of such agreements for undertakings.