Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:1998:436
Date: 1998-09-24
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: State aids;Competition
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Belgium

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Preliminary rulings —Jurisdiction of the Court — Limits — Assessment as to whether 
a particular grant of aid is compatible with the common market — Not covered 
(EC Treaty, Arts 93 and 177 (now Arts 88 EC and 234 EC)) 
2. State aid — Concept — Facilities for the payment of social security contributions 
granted to an undertaking in a discretionary manner by a body with responsibility for 
their collection — Covered — Conditions 
(EC Treaty, Art. 92(1) (now, after amendment, Art. 87(1) EC)) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-256/97 
1. In providing through Article 93 (now 
Article 88 EC) for aid to be kept under 
constant review and supervised by the 
Commission, the intention of the 
Treaty is that a finding that a particular 
grant of aid may be incompatible with 
the common market is to be made, 
subject to review by the Court, by 
means of an appropriate procedure 
which it is the Commission's responsi­
bility to set in motion. It follows that 
the Court has no jurisdiction to reply to 
a question referred for a preliminary 
ruling which raises the issue of whether 
a grant of aid assessed by the national 
court is compatible with the common 
market. 
2. The concept of State aid embraces not 
only positive benefits, such as subsi­
dies, but also measures which, in 
various forms, mitigate the charges 
which are normally included in the 
budget of an undertaking and which, 
accordingly, without being subsidies 
proper, are of the same nature and 
have identical effects. For instance, 
where a public body with responsibility 
for collecting social security contribu­
tions tolerates late payment of such 
contributions, its conduct undoubtedly 
gives the recipient undertaking a sig­
nificant commercial advantage by miti­
gating, for that undertaking, the bur­
den associated with normal application 
of the social security system. 
Moreover, it follows from the wording 
of Article 92(1) of the Treaty (now, 
after amendment, Article 87(1) EC) 
that general measures which do not 
favour only certain undertakings or the 
production of only certain goods do 
not fall within that provision. By 
contrast, where the body granting 
financial assistance enjoys a degree of 
latitude which enables it to choose the 
beneficiaries or the conditions under 
which the financial assistance is provi­
ded, that assistance cannot be consid­
ered to be general in nature. 
Payment facilities in respect of social 
security contributions granted in a 
discretionary manner to an undertak­
ing by the body responsible for collect­
ing such contributions constitute State 
aid for the purposes of Article 92(1) of 
the Treaty if, having regard to the size 
of the economic advantage so con­
ferred, the undertaking would mani­
festly have been unable to obtain 
comparable facilities from a private 
creditor in the same situation vis-à-vis 
that undertaking as the collecting body. 
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