Case C-76/15: Judgment of the Court (Second Chamber) of 21 December 2016 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Grondwettelijk Hof — Belgium) — Paul Vervloet and Others v Ministerraad (Reference for a preliminary ruling — State aid — Aid implemented by the Kingdom of Belgium in favour of ARCO Group financial cooperatives — Deposit guarantee schemes — Directive 94/19/EC — Scope — Guarantee scheme protecting the shares of individual members, being natural persons, of cooperatives operating in the financial sector — Not included — Articles 107 and 108 TFEU — Commission decision declaring the aid incompatible with the internal market)
Date: 2016-12-21
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: Belgium, EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, State aid, control of State aid, cooperative, financial market, investment protection








C_2017053EN.01000601.xml










20.2.2017   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 53/6





Judgment of the Court (Second Chamber) of 21 December 2016 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Grondwettelijk Hof — Belgium) — Paul Vervloet and Others v Ministerraad
(Case C-76/15) (1)

((Reference for a preliminary ruling - State aid - Aid implemented by the Kingdom of Belgium in favour of ARCO Group financial cooperatives - Deposit guarantee schemes - Directive 94/19/EC - Scope - Guarantee scheme protecting the shares of individual members, being natural persons, of cooperatives operating in the financial sector - Not included - Articles 107 and 108 TFEU - Commission decision declaring the aid incompatible with the internal market))
(2017/C 053/07)
Language of the case: Dutch

Referring court

Grondwettelijk Hof

Parties to the main proceedings


Applicants: Paul Vervloet, Marc De Wit, Edgard Timperman, Godelieve Van Braekel, Patrick Beckx, Marc De Schryver, Guy Deneire, Steve Van Hoof, Organisme voor de financiering van pensioenen Ogeo Fund, Gemeente Schaarbeek, Frédéric Ensch Famenne

Defendant: Ministerraad

Intervening parties: Arcofin CVBA, Arcopar CVBA, Arcoplus CVBA

Operative part of the judgment







1.


Articles 2 and 3 of Directive 94/19/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 1994 on deposit-guarantee schemes, as amended by Directive 2005/1/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 2005, must be interpreted as not requiring Member States to adopt a scheme to guarantee shares in recognised cooperatives operating in the financial sector, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, and as not precluding Member States from adopting such a scheme, in so far as that scheme does not undermine the practical effectiveness of the deposit-guarantee scheme that that directive requires Member States to establish, which is a matter to be determined by the referring court, and provided that it complies with the FEU Treaty, in particular with Articles 107 and 108 TFEU;










2.


The examination of the questions referred for a preliminary ruling by the Grondwettelijk Hof (Constitutional Court, Belgium) has disclosed nothing capable of affecting the validity of Commission Decision 2014/686/EU of 3 July 2014 on State aid SA.33927 (12/C) (ex 11/NN) implemented by Belgium — Guarantee scheme protecting the shares of individual members of financial cooperatives;










3.


Article 108(3) TFEU must be interpreted as precluding a guarantee scheme such as that at issue in the main proceedings, in so far as the latter was put into effect in infringement of the obligations arising from that provision.






(1)  OJ C 171, 26.5.2015.