WRITTEN QUESTION E-3610/98

by Gianfranco Dell'Alba (NI) to the Commission

(3 December 1998)

Subject: State aid for RAI under the Italian financial law

In the 1999 financial bill it submitted to parliament, the Italian Government included a subsidy of more than 200 billion for RAI as compensation for revenue the State broadcasting company did not receive from its annual licence fees. The subsidy, which should be considered as State aid within the meaning of Article 92 of the Treaty, does not have to be entered in separate accounts or any reports, and thus does not meet the most basic criteria of accounting transparency. It must however be notified in advance to the Commission.

In view of its most recent guidelines on the subject, does the Commission not consider such aid to be totally illegitimate since it is incompatible with the rules governing State aid?

Does it intend to warn the Italian Government about this incompatibility in order to prevent inclusion in the financial law of a provision that conflicts with Community legislation?

Answer given by Mr Van Miert on behalf of the Commission

(11 January 1999)

The Commission, at this stage, has not received from the Italian government any notification concerning the financing measures which the Honourable Member mentions. An act of national authorities granting state resources to a public undertaking in the sense of Commission Directive 80/723/EEC of 25 June 1980 on the transparency of financial relations between Member States and public undertakings(1) is subject to the notification obligation under Article 93 of the EC Treaty.

However, the Commission is analysing, following a complaint received in 1996, other measures in favour of the Radio televisione italiana (RAI) which may, in principle, be relevant under Community state aid rules. Amongst these, the main measure is the financing scheme of RAI, comprised of public resources (licence fee) and market resources (advertising revenues).

On the basis of the information currently available to the Commission, it appears that RAI has not adopted any analytical accounting system so to separate public service costs and revenues from commercial costs and revenues. Nor, at this stage, does it appear that the Italian government has defined with sufficient precision which activities are related to the one or to the other area. The assessment of the complaint requires very complex analysis.

The Commission has requested detailed information from the Italian authorities in order to clarify the facts reported in the complaint, in the light of the EC Treaty and of the Amsterdam protocol. Some of this information has already been provided by the government, whilst other information is not yet available.

The Commission is of the opinion that the measures to which the Honourable Member refers have be assessed together with the financing scheme of RAI as a whole, taking into account the public service obligations imposed upon RAI by the Italian legislation. Should the resources granted by the state to RAI exceed the costs incurred by the undertaking to fulfil its public service mission, they may constitute incompatible state aid in the sense of Article 92.

(1) OJ L 195, 29.7.1980.