5.

The General Court summarised the background to the case as follows at paragraphs 1 to 8 of the judgment under appeal: ‘1. In order to enable Italian milk producers to pay the additional levy of EUR 1386475000 owed to the European Union for exceeding the milk quota allocated to the Italian Republic during the period 1995/1996 to 2001/2002, the Italian Republic sought authorisation from the Council of the European Union to establish a State aid scheme pursuant to the third subparagraph of Article 88(2) EC. 2. By Decision 2003/530/EC of 16 July 2003 on the compatibility with the common market of an aid that the Italian Republic intends to grant to its milk producers (OJ 2003 L 184, p. 15, “the Council decision”), the Council authorised that Member State to “itself mak[e] payment to the [European Union] of the amount due from them to the [European Union] by virtue of the additional levy on milk and milk products for the period 1995/1996 to 2001/2002” (Article 1 of the Council decision). The Council also authorised it to “[allow the interested parties] to repay their debt [in relation to the Italian Republic] by way of deferred payment over a number of years without interest” (Article 1 of the Council decision). 3. That statement of compatibility was subject to two sets of conditions. In the first place, the Council required the Italian authorities, first, to declare the amount corresponding to the additional levy owed by the milk producers to the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) and, secondly, to deduct their outstanding debt to the European Union and the interest thereon from the expenditure financed by the EAGGF (Article 2 of the Council decision). In the second place, it required the milk producers to repay in full their debt to the Italian Republic in yearly instalments of equal size and to do so over a period not exceeding 14 years starting from 1 January 2004 (Article 1 of the Council decision). 4. In that context, the Italian authorities adopted decreto-legge n. 49, Riforma della normativa in tema di applicazione del prelievo supplementare nel settore del latte e dei prodotti lattiero-caseari (Decree-law No 49 of 28 March 2003 reforming the rules on the application of the additional levy in the milk and dairy products sector) (GURI No 75 of 31 March 2003, p. 4), and decreto ministeriale del 30 luglio 2003, disposizioni per il versamento del prelievo supplementare, dovuto e non versato per i periodi dal 1995/1996 al 2001/2002 di cui all’art. 10, comma 34, della legge n. 119/2003… (Ministerial Decree of 30 July 2003 on payment of the additional levy which is payable but unpaid for the period 1995/1996 to 2001/2002 and referred to in Article 10(34) of Law No 119/2003) (GURI No 183 of 8 August 2003, p. 33). The combined provisions of those two measures provided, in essence, that the amount of the additional levy borne by the Italian Republic would be fully repaid to it by the milk producers, without interest, in the form of annual payment instalments of the same amount deferred over a period not exceeding 14 years (“the system of staggered payments”). 5. Having amended those provisions on several occasions, in particular to enable the persons concerned to request that their debt be staggered over a period of up to 30 years, and then by deferring by six months the payment of the annual instalments due on 30 June 2010, the Italian authorities adopted legge n. 10, conversione in legge, con modificazioni, del decreto-legge n. 225, 29 dicembre 2010, recante proroga di termini previsti da disposizioni legislative e di interventi urgenti in materia tributaria e di sostegno alle imprese e alle famiglie (Law No 10 of 26 February 2011, converting into law, with amendments, Decree-Law No 225 of 29 December 2010, extending time-limits laid down by legislative provisions and urgent interventions in tax matters and to support undertakings and families) (GURI No 47 of 26 February 2011, Ordinary Supplement No 53), which entered into force the following day (27 February 2011). The latter, in particular, inserted Article 1(12)k into Decree-Law No 225, which provided that, “[i]n order to address the serious crisis affecting the dairy sector, the time-limits for payment of the amounts due on 31 December 2010 referred to in the instalment plans laid down by Decree-Law No 49 [and the subsequent legislation] have been extended until 30 June 2011” (“the deferral of payment”). 6. The Italian authorities informed the European Commission that the “grant equivalent” of that measure had been offset against the de minimis aid provided for that Member State by the annex to Commission Regulation (EC) No 1535/2007 of 20 December 2007 on the application of Articles [107 TFEU] and [108 TFEU] to de minimis aid in the sector of agricultural production (OJ 2007 L 337, p. 35). According to the Italian authorities, the 11271 beneficiaries of the system of staggered payments included 1291 milk producers benefiting from that measure, that is to say a proportion of 11.45%. Furthermore, the individual aid obtained on that basis ranged from between EUR 0.08 to EUR 694.19. Lastly, 1187 of the 1291 milk producers concerned received less than EUR 100, and 559 of them received less than EUR 12. 7. By Decision C(2011) 10055 final of 11 January 2012 on State aid SA.33726 (11/C) (ex SA.33726 (11/NN)) — Deferral of payment of the milk levy in Italy, a summary of which was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 10 February 2012 (OJ 2012 C 37, p. 30), the Commission initiated the procedure laid down in Article 108(2) TFEU. In the first place, it indicated, in essence, that it had doubts relating to the classification of the deferral of payment in the light of Article 107 TFEU, and to the compatibility of that measure with the internal market. In the second place, the Commission stated that that deferral of payment gave rise to an infringement of one of the conditions laid down in the Council decision, that that infringement transformed the whole system of staggered payments established by the Italian authorities into new aid, in so far as it related to milk producers who had benefited from the deferral of payment, and that the compatibility of that new aid with the internal market had also not been established. 8. By [the decision at issue], the Commission considered, following the exchange with the Italian authorities during the administrative procedure, that each of the two measures at issue, namely, the deferral of payment, on the one hand, and the system of staggered payments, on the other hand, constituted new and unlawful aid which was incompatible with the internal market (Article 1 of the … decision [at issue]). It therefore ordered the Italian Republic to ensure the immediate and effective recovery of the sums granted to milk producers who had benefited from the deferral of payment, together with interest (Articles 2 and 3 of the … decision [at issue]).’