Press Release: State aid: Poste Italiane – Commission declares aid to Poste Italiane unlawful and requires recovery

The European Commission declared unlawful under EC Treaty state aid rules an aid granted to Poste Italiane in the form of excessive renumeration paid by the Italian Treasury for funds collected from Poste Italiane’s customers’ current accounts and deposited with the Treasury as of 2005. Italy did not notify the scheme to the Commission before its implementation so that the aid unlawfully granted must be recovered from Poste Italiane. The Commission's in-depth investigation, opened in September 2006, found that the interest rates from the Italian Treasury unduly favoured Poste Italiane. This unlawful aid is liable to give Poste Italiane an unfair advantage over its competitors on the liberalised postal and financial markets in Italy. The scheme which led to this benefit to Poste Italiane was repealed in the Italian budgetary law of 2007.