Official Journal of the European Union

C 148/3

(Case C-349/17) (*)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - State aid - Regulation (EC) No 800/2008 (General block exemption regulation) - Article 8(2) - Aid with an incentive effect - Concept of ‘start of work on the project’ - Powers of the national authorities - Unlawful aid - No decision of the European Commission or of a national court - Obligation on the national authorities to recover unlawful aid on their own initiative - Legal basis - Article 108(3) TFEU - General principle of EU law of protection of legitimate expectations - Decision of the competent national authority granting aid under Regulation No 800/2008 - Knowledge of circumstances excluding the eligibility of the aid application - Creation of a legitimate expectation - None - Limitation - Aid co-financed from a structural fund - Applicable legislation - Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2988/95 - National legislation - Interest - Obligation to claim interest - Legal basis - Article 108(3) TFEU - Applicable legislation - National rules - Principle of effectiveness)

(2019/C 148/03)

Language of the case: Estonian

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: Eesti Pagar AS

Defendants: Ettevõtluse Arendamise Sihtasutus, Majandus- ja Kommunikatsiooniministeerium

Operative part of the judgment

1.Article 8(2) of Commission Regulation (EC) No 800/2008 of 6 August 2008 declaring certain categories of aid compatible with the common market in application of Articles [107 and 108 TFEU] (General block exemption regulation), must be interpreted as meaning that ‘work on the project or activity’, within the meaning of that provision, started when a first order of equipment required for that project or that activity was made by means of entering into an unconditional and legally binding commitment before the submission of the aid application, regardless of any costs of resiling from that commitment.

2.Article 108(3) TFEU must be interpreted as meaning that that provision requires the national authority to recover on its own initiative aid that it has granted pursuant to Regulation No 800/2008 when it finds, subsequently, that the conditions laid down by that regulation were not satisfied.

3.EU law must be interpreted as meaning that a national authority cannot, where it grants aid while misapplying Regulation No 800/2008, cause the beneficiary of that aid to hold a legitimate expectation that that aid is lawful.

4.EU law must be interpreted as meaning that, where a national authority has granted aid from a structural fund while misapplying Regulation No 800/2008, the limitation period applicable to the recovery of the unlawful aid is, if the conditions for the application of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2988/95 of 18 December 1995 on the protection of the European Communities financial interests are satisfied, four years, in accordance with Article 3(1) of the latter regulation or, if not, the period laid down by the applicable national law.

5.EU law must be interpreted as meaning that, where a national authority undertakes on its own initiative to recover aid which it has wrongly granted under Regulation No 800/2008, it is the duty of that authority to claim interest from the beneficiary of that aid in accordance with the rules of the applicable national law. In that regard, Article 108(3) TFEU requires that those rules should be such as to ensure full recovery of the unlawful aid and that, therefore, the beneficiary of that aid must be ordered to pay, inter alia, interest for the whole of the period over which it benefited from that aid and at a rate equivalent to that which would have been applied if the beneficiary had had to borrow the amount of the aid at issue on the market within that period.

(*)

Language of the case: Estonian