Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. ECSC - Scope of ECSC Treaty - Rules applicable to State aid - Application to all activities of a steel undertaking - Conditions

(ECSC Treaty, Arts 4(c) and 80)

2. ECSC - Aid to the steel industry - Public subsidies - Articles 4(c) and 67(3) of the Treaty - Different scope

(ECSC Treaty, Arts 4(c) and 67(3))

3. Action for annulment - Contested measure - Assessment of legality in the light of the information available at the time of adoption of the measure

(ECSC Treaty, Art. 33)

4. ECSC - Aid to the steel industry - Recovery of unlawful aid - Possibility that the recipients may have legitimate expectations - Protection - Conditions and limits

Summary

1. The fact that an undertaking is engaged in production in the steel industry and is therefore a steel undertaking in terms of Article 80 of the ECSC Treaty does not mean that all its activities are to be regarded as activities falling within the scope of the ECSC Treaty. Nor does that fact give reason to conclude that the investment aid intended for such an undertaking must be considered, in all circumstances, under the rules on State aid falling within the scope of the EEC Treaty. The application of the ECSC Treaty to the aid granted to a steel undertaking for its investments connected with one of its activities not falling within the ECSC Treaty can be justified only if there are insufficient guarantees to prevent diversion of that aid to its production activities that fall within the ECSC Treaty.

In that regard, although it is indeed for the Member State concerned, assisted where necessary by the undertaking in receipt of the aid, which has the relevant figures at its disposal, to provide the Commission with all the evidence which should enable it to check during the administrative procedure whether or not such guarantees exist, the Commission is under a duty to carry out that procedure diligently and in accordance with the principle of protection of legitimate expectations, which is one of the fundamental principles of the Community and by virtue of which it is necessary, where appropriate, to take into account the legitimate expectation of a procedural nature which the parties concerned may have entertained owing to what was said in the decision to open the procedure for the examination of the aid in question.

( see paras 60-61, 125-126 )

2. Article 67(3) of the ECSC Treaty is aimed solely at the advantages in favour of the steel industry arising from the application of national legislation or regulations connected with the general economic policy of the Member State concerned, not at public subsidies granted specially to the coal and steel industry or to a specific steel undertaking, which come under Article 4(c) of the ECSC Treaty.

( see para. 85 )

3. In an action for annulment under Article 33 of the ECSC Treaty, the legality of the Community measure concerned falls to be assessed on the basis of the elements of fact and of law existing at the time when the measure was adopted. Thus, the complex assessments made by the Commission must be examined solely on the basis of the information available to the Commission at the time when those assessments were made.

( see para. 93 )

4. Undertakings to which State aid has been granted may not entertain a legitimate expectation that the aid is lawful unless it has been granted in compliance with the appropriate procedure, something which a diligent businessman ought to be able to ascertain. However, the principle of protection of legitimate expectations prevents the Commission from ordering recovery of aid whose compatibility with the common market in coal and steel it re-examined several years after approving the aid concerned and which it found to be incompatible with that market.

( see paras 182, 189 )