Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:1998:341
Date: 1998-07-09
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: State aids;Competition
Procedure: Action for annulment - unfounded;Action for annulment - successful
Origin: Spain

SUMMARY — CASE C-342/96 
security contributions and with which those 
bodies have concluded agreements under 
which the accumulated debts are to be resched­
uled or paid by instalments in order to facili­
tate their repayment, account must be taken 
of the fact that those agreements were con­
cluded because the undertaking was already 
subject to the pre-existing statutory obliga­
tion to make such payments, which means 
that they did not therefore create any new 
debts owed by the undertaking to the public 
authorities. The interest normally applicable 
to that type of debt is intended to make good 
the loss suffered by the creditor because of 
the debtor's delay in performing its obliga­
tion to pay off its debt, namely default interest. 
In cases where the rate of default interest 
applied to the debts of a public creditor is not 
the same as the rate charged for the debts 
owed to a private creditor, the latter rate 
ought to be charged where it is higher than 
the former, if the rate of default interest is not 
to constitute an element of State aid. 
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