Todaro Nunziatina & C. Snc v Assessorato del Lavoro, della Previdenza Sociale, della Formazione Professionale e dell’Emigrazione della regione Sicilia.
Date: 2010-05-20
16. In that regard, it should be borne in mind that the Court may decide not to give a preliminary ruling on the validity of a Community act where it is quite obvious that that determination, requested by the national court, bears no relation to the actual facts of the main action or its purpose (Case C‑222/04 Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze and Others  [2006] ECR I‑289, paragraph 75 and the case‑law cited).
25. It must be borne in mind that 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 (see, inter alia, Case C‑295/97 Piaggio  [1999] ECR I‑3735, paragraph 24 and the case‑law cited, and Case C‑378/08 ERG and Others  [2010] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 73).
31. In order to interpret the 1995 Decision, it is appropriate not only to examine the actual text thereof, of which only a summary was published in the Official Journal of the European Communities  on 21 December 1995, but also to refer to the Italian Government’s notification of 18 May 1995 of the measures adopted.
40. In that regard, it must be noted that the 1995 Decision merely fixes the commitment limit of the budgetary provision and neither specifies nor interferes in the rules governing payment of that aid, which remain subject to the national provisions.
41. It follows from the foregoing that the answer to the first, second and third questions is that the 1995 Decision must be interpreted as having accepted, as being compatible with the common market, an aid scheme composed of two measures provided for in Article 10(1)(a) and (b) of Law 27/91, which cannot be cumulative and the event giving rise to which, that is to say, the recruitment of a worker or the conversion of the contract into an open-ended contract, must have taken place before 31 December 1996, but the payments to which they give rise may be made after that date, on condition that the applicable national budgetary and financial rules do not preclude that and that the budgetary provision approved by the Commission is not exceeded.
The fourth, sixth and seventh questions
46. Furthermore, it is settled case-law that measures taken after the entry into force of the Treaty to grant or alter aid, whether the alterations relate to existing aid or to initial plans notified to the Commission, must be regarded as new aid (Joined Cases C‑346/03 and C‑529/03 Atzeni and Others  [2006] ECR I‑1875, paragraph 51 and the case-law cited).
47. It follows that, by providing both for an increase in the budget allocated to the aid scheme referred to in Article 10 of Law 27/91, in an amount exceeding 50% in the present case, and for a two-year extension of the period during which the conditions for grant of that aid were applicable, Article 11(1) of Law 16/97 created new aid distinct from the aid referred to in the 1995 Decision. That new aid alone was declared incompatible with the common market by the Commission in Decision 2003/195.
53. Thus, the purpose and effect of the 1995 Decision are not to compel the Italian Republic to grant the aid referred to in Article 10(1)(a) and (b) of Law 27/91, but rather to authorise it to implement that aid if that continues to be its wish (see, to that effect, Case C‑18/08 Foselev Sud-Ouest  [2008] ECR I‑8745, paragraph 16).
58. In that regard, it is appropriate, firstly, to note that the first sentence of Article 88(3) EC imposes on the Member States an obligation to inform the Commission of any plans to grant or alter aid (Case C‑199/06 CELF and Ministre de la Culture et de la Communication  [2008] ECR I‑469, paragraph 33).
61. The prohibition laid down by that provision is designed to ensure that an aid scheme cannot become operational before the Commission has had a reasonable period in which to study the proposed measures in detail and, if necessary, to initiate the procedure provided for in Article 88(2) EC (Case C‑301/87 France  v Commission (‘ Boussac Saint Frères’ ) [1990] ECR I‑307, paragraph 17, and CELF and Ministre de la Culture et de la Communication , paragraph 36).