Press Release: State aid: Commission refers Italy to Court for failure to respect Court ruling to recover illegal aid

The European Commission decided to refer Italy to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for failure to implement a 2004 ruling by the Court of Justice (case C-99/02) confirming a Commission decision of 1999 finding that Italy had granted illegal and incompatible aid and ordering its recovery. The illegal aid in question took the form of exemptions from social security contributions in cases where companies could not prove that new jobs had been created or prove that the workers hired had special difficulties entering or re-entering the employment market. Although over five years have elapsed since this judgement, Italy had still only recovered a small part of the overall aid amount estimated at about 281 million euros. The Commission therefore now requested the ECJ to impose fines on Italy under Article 228 of the EC Treaty.