European Commission v French Republic and IFP Énergies nouvelles.
Date: 2018-09-19
63


Moreover, as is apparent from the Court’s case-law in relation to State aid, the Commission may, in the case of an aid scheme, confine itself to examining the general characteristics of the scheme in question, without being required to examine each particular case in which it applies in order to establish whether that scheme involves elements of aid (judgments of 9 June 2011, Comitato Venezia vuole vivere and Others v Commission, C‑71/09 P, C‑73/09 P and C‑76/09 P, EU:C:2011:368, paragraph 130, and of 15 November 2011, Commission and Spain v Government of Gibraltar and United Kingdom, C‑106/09 P and C‑107/09 P, EU:C:2011:732, paragraph 122).
108


It should be noted that, according to the settled case-law of the Court, the classification of a national measure as ‘State aid’ for the purposes of Article 107(1) TFEU requires that all the following conditions are fulfilled. Firstly, there must be intervention by the State or through State resources. Secondly, that intervention must be liable to affect trade between Member States. Thirdly, it must confer a selective advantage on the recipient. Fourthly, it must distort or threaten to distort competition (judgments of 21 December 2016, Commission v World Duty Free Group and Others, C‑20/15 P and C‑21/15 P, EU:C:2016:981, paragraph 53 and the case-law cited, and of 18 May 2017, Fondul Proprietatea, C‑150/16, EU:C:2017:388, paragraph 13).
109


As regards, in particular, the third of those conditions, it must be noted that, according to the Court’s equally settled case-law, measures that, whatever their form, are likely directly or indirectly to favour certain undertakings, or fall to be regarded as an economic advantage that the recipient undertaking would not have obtained under normal market conditions, are regarded as State aid (judgments of2 September 2010, Commission v Deutsche Post, C‑399/08 P, EU:C:2010:481, paragraph 40 and the case-law cited, and of 27 June 2017, Congregación de Escuelas Pías Provincia Betania, C‑74/16, EU:C:2017:496, paragraph 65 and the case-law cited).
110


It must be noted that, as the General Court stated in paragraph 71 of the judgment under appeal, it is for the Commission to provide proof of the existence of State aid within the meaning of Article 107(1) TFEU. In particular, it is apparent from the Court’s case-law relating to the principles governing the administration of proof in the sector of State aid that the Commission is required to conduct a diligent and impartial examination of the contested measures, so that it has at its disposal, when adopting the final decision establishing the existence and, as the case may be, the incompatibility or unlawfulness of the aid, the most complete and reliable information possible for that purpose (judgment of 3 April 2014, France v Commission, C‑559/12 P, EU:C:2014:217, paragraph 63).
111


However, it follows from the judgment of 3 April 2014, France v Commission (C‑559/12 P, EU:C:2014:217, paragraphs 98 and 99), that, in the context of that examination, the Commission can rely on a simple presumption that the grant of an implied and unlimited State guarantee in favour of an undertaking which is not subject to the ordinary compulsory administration and winding-up procedures results in an improvement in its financial position through a reduction of the charges that would normally encumber its budget. Consequently, in the context of the procedure relating to existing aid, to prove the advantage obtained by such a guarantee to the recipient undertaking, it is sufficient for the Commission to establish the mere existence of that guarantee, without having to show the actual effects produced by it from the time that it is granted.
116


As the Advocate General, in essence, stated in point 123 of his Opinion, the mere fact that IFPEN benefits from a State guarantee was such as to enable the Commission to rely on the presumption of an advantage, as developed by the Court in the judgment of 3 April 2014, France v Commission (C‑559/12 P, EU:C:2014:217), since that presumption is based on the idea that, thanks to the guarantee associated with its status, an EPIC benefits or could benefit from better financial terms than those normally available on the financial markets. In order to rely on that presumption, the Commission was therefore not required to show the actual effects produced by the guarantee at issue (see, to that effect, judgment of 3 April 2014, France v Commission, C‑559/12 P, EU:C:2014:217, paragraph 99).