Press Release: State aid: Commission refers Italy to Court for failure to recover incompatible aid from Italian ground handling operator SEA Handling

The European Commission on 23 July 2014, referred Italy to the EU Court of Justice (EUCJ) for failing to comply with a Commission decision of 2012 ordering the recovery of incompatible state aid.

In the decision, the Commission had found that around €360 million of state aid granted between 2002 and 2010 by SEA, the Italian state-owned operator of the Milan airports, to its subsidiary SEA Handling was incompatible with EU state aid rules and had to be recovered. More than one and a half years after the Commission's decision, this has still not been done.