Ministero dell'Industria, del Commercio e dell'Artigianato v Lucchini SpA.
Date: 2007-07-18
41. By way of preliminary point, it should be noted that the Court retains jurisdiction to deliver preliminary rulings on questions referred to it concerning the interpretation and application of the ECSC Treaty and on measures adopted under that Treaty, even if those questions are referred to it after the expiry of the ECSC Treaty. Although Article 41 of the ECSC Treaty may no longer be applied in those circumstances to confer jurisdiction on the Court, it would be contrary to the objectives and the coherence of the Treaties and irreconcilable with the continuity of the Community legal order if the Court did not have jurisdiction to ensure uniform interpretation of the rules deriving from the ECSC Treaty, which continue to produce effects even after the expiry of that Treaty (see, to that effect, Case C‑221/88 Busseni [1990] ECR I-495, paragraph 16). None of the parties which submitted observations has, moreover, disputed the Court’s jurisdiction in that regard.
43. In this regard, it must be recalled that, in proceedings under Article 234 EC, which are based on a clear separation of functions between the national courts and the Court of Justice, any assessment of the facts in the case is a matter for the national court. Similarly, it is solely for the national court before which the dispute has been brought, and which must assume responsibility for the subsequent judicial decision, to determine in the light of the particular circumstances of the case both the need for a preliminary ruling in order to enable it to deliver judgment and the relevance of the questions which it submits to the Court. Consequently, where the questions submitted concern the interpretation of Community law, the Court is in principle bound to give a ruling (see, inter alia, Case C-326/00 IKA  [2003] ECR I-1703, paragraph 27; Case C-145/03 Keller [2005] ECR I-2529, paragraph 33; and Case C-419/04 Conseil général de la Vienne  [2006] ECR I-5645, paragraph 19).
44. Nevertheless, the Court has also held that, in exceptional circumstances, it can examine the conditions in which the case was referred to it by the national court, in order to confirm its own jurisdiction (see, to that effect, Case 244/80 Foglia [1981] ECR 3045, paragraph 21). The Court may refuse to rule on a question referred for a preliminary ruling by a national court only where it is quite obvious that the interpretation of Community law that is sought bears no relation to the facts of the main action or its purpose, where the problem is hypothetical, or where the Court does not have before it the factual or legal material necessary to give a useful answer to the questions submitted to it (see, inter alia, Case C-379/98 PreussenElektra  [2001] ECR I-2099, paragraph 39; Case C-390/99 Canal Satélite Digital  [2002] ECR I-607, paragraph 19; and Conseil général de la Vienne , paragraph 20).
46. It is clear that this reference for a preliminary ruling concerns rules of Community law. In the present case, the Court is not called upon to interpret national law or a judgment of a national court but to make clear the extent to which national courts are required under Community law to exclude the application of national law. The questions submitted therefore appear to relate to the subject-matter of the main proceedings, as defined by the Consiglio di Stato, and the answers to the questions submitted may be useful to that court in enabling it to rule on the annulment of the measures taken to recover the aid in question.
50. Proceedings concerning State aid may be commenced before national courts requiring those courts to interpret and apply the concept of aid contained in Article 87(1) EC, in particular in order to determine whether State aid introduced without observance of the preliminary examination procedure provided for in Article 88(3) EC ought to have been subject to this procedure (Case 78/76 Steinike & Weinlig  [1977] ECR 595, paragraph 14, and Case C-354/90 Fédération nationale du commerce extérieur des produits alimentaires and Syndicat national des négociants et transformateurs de saumon [1991] ECR I-5505, paragraph 10). Similarly, in order to be able to determine whether a State measure established without taking account of the preliminary examination procedure laid down by Article 6 of the third code should or should not be made subject to that procedure, a national court may have occasion to interpret the concept of aid referred to in Article 4(c) of the ECSC Treaty and Article 1 of the third code (see, by analogy, Case C-390/98 Banks [2001] ECR I-6117, paragraph 71).
51. On the other hand, national courts do not have jurisdiction to give a decision on whether State aid is compatible with the common market.
52. It is settled case-law that the assessment of the compatibility of aid measures or of an aid scheme with the common market falls within the exclusive competence of the Commission, subject to review by the Community Courts (see Steinike & Weinlig , paragraph 9; Fédération nationale du commerce extérieur des produits alimentaires and Syndicat national des négociants et transformateurs de saumon , paragraph 14; and Case C‑39/94 SFEI and Others [1996] ECR I-3547, paragraph 42).
The jurisdiction of national courts to declare Community acts invalid.
53. While national courts may, in principle, have occasion to consider whether a Community act is valid, they nonetheless have no jurisdiction themselves to declare acts of Community institutions invalid (Case 314/85 Foto-Frost  [1987] ECR 4199, paragraph 20). The Court of Justice alone therefore has jurisdiction to determine that a Community act is invalid (Joined Cases C-143/88 and C-92/89 Zuckerfabrik Süderdithmarschen and Zuckerfabrik Soest  [1991] ECR I‑415, paragraph 17, and Case C-344/04 IATE and ELFAA [2006] ECR I-403, paragraph 27). That exclusive jurisdiction is also expressly set out in Article 41 of the ECSC Treaty.
54. Moreover, it is settled case-law that a decision adopted by a Community institution which has not been challenged by its addressee within the time-limit laid down by the fifth paragraph of Article 230 EC becomes definitive as against that person (see, inter alia, Case C-188/92 TWD Textilwerke Deggendorf  [1994] ECR I-833, paragraph 13, and Case C‑241/01 National Farmers’ Union [2002] ECR I-9079, paragraph 34).
55. The Court has also held that it is not possible for a recipient of State aid forming the subject-matter of a Commission decision addressed directly solely to the Member State of that beneficiary, who could undoubtedly have challenged that decision and who allowed the mandatory time-limit laid down in this regard by the fifth paragraph of Article 230 EC to pass, effectively to call in question the lawfulness of that decision before the national courts in an action brought against the measures taken by the national authorities in implementation of that decision ( TWD Textilwerke Deggendorf , paragraphs 17 and 20, and National Farmers’ Union , paragraph 35). The same principles necessarily apply mutatis mutandis  within the scope of application of the ECSC Treaty.
59. According to the national court, Article 2909 of the Italian Civil Code precludes not only the reopening, in a second set of proceedings, of pleas in law which have already been expressly and definitively determined but also precludes the examination of matters which could have been raised in earlier proceedings but were not. One of the consequences of such an interpretation of that provision may be that effects are attributed to a decision of a national court which exceed the limits of the jurisdiction of the court in question as laid down in Community law. It is clear, as the Consiglio di Stato has observed, that the effect of applying that provision, interpreted in such a manner, in the present case would be to frustrate the application of Community law in so far as it would make it impossible to recover State aid that was granted in breach of Community law.
60. In that context, it should be noted that it is for the national courts to interpret, as far as it is possible, the provisions of national law in such a way that they can be applied in a manner which contributes to the implementation of Community law.
61. It also follows from settled case-law that a national court which is called upon, within the exercise of its jurisdiction, to apply provisions of Community law is under a duty to give full effect to those provisions, if necessary refusing of its own motion to apply any conflicting provision of national legislation (see, inter alia, Case 106/77 Simmenthal [1978] ECR 629, paragraphs 21 to 24; Case 130/78 Salumificio di Cornuda [1979] ECR 867, paragraphs 23 to 27; and Case C-213/89 Factortame and Others  [1990] ECR I-2433, paragraphs 19 to 21).
62. As stated at paragraph 52 above, the assessment of the compatibility of aid measures or of an aid scheme with the common market falls within the exclusive competence of the Commission, subject to review by the Community Courts. That rule applies within the national legal order as a result of the principle of the primacy of Community law.
63. The answer to the questions referred must therefore be that Community law precludes the application of a provision of national law, such as Article 2909 of the Italian Civil Code, which seeks to lay down the principle of res judicata  in so far as the application of that provision prevents the recovery of State aid granted in breach of Community law which has been found to be incompatible with the common market in a decision of the Commission which has become final.
Costs