11.9.2010

Official Journal of the European Union

C 246/34

(Case C-354/10)

()

2010/C 246/57

Language of the case: Greek

Parties

Applicant: European Commission (represented by: D. Triantafillou and B. Stromsky)

Defendant: Hellenic Republic

Form of order sought

—declare that, since it did not take within the prescribed period all the measures necessary for the refund of the aid that was found to be unlawful and incompatible with the common market, under Article 1(1) (except as referred to in Article 1(2) and Articles 2 and 3) of the Commission decision of 18 July 2007 (C(2007) 3251) concerning the tax-exempt reserve fund (aid number C 37/2005), or in any event has not informed the Commission sufficiently of the measures which it has taken under the article, the Hellenic Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under Articles 4, 5 and 6 of that decision and under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union;

—order the Hellenic Republic to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The Greek authorities have not pleaded an absolute inability to implement the Commission decision and, three years on, have not demonstrated exactly what they have checked, in which instances recovery has been sought and in which instances recovery has taken place. More specifically:

they have not explained for every recipient what sort of expenditure it carried out so as to be entitled to aid on the basis of a regulation concerning a general exemption;

they have not calculated the extent of the aid in respect of each recipient;

they have extended the exemption from the obligation to refund aid to instances beyond those provided for in the decision;

they have miscalculated the amount of ‘de minimis’ aid which is exempt from refund;

they have not examined any cumulation with other aid;

they have not calculated correctly the amount to be recovered, proceeding from a mistaken basis;

they have not produced documentation for those refunds which have been effected.