Official Journal of the European Union

C 156/13

(Case C-129/12) (<span class="super">1</span>)

(Regional aid scheme - Investment in the processing and marketing of agricultural products - Commission decision - Incompatibility with the internal market - Abolition of incompatible aid - Time at which aid is granted - Principle of the protection of legitimate expectations)

2013/C 156/19

Language of the case: German

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: Magdeburger Mühlenwerke GmbH

Defendant: Finanzamt Magdeburg

Re:

Request for a preliminary ruling — Finanzgericht des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt — Interpretation of Commission Decision 1999/183/EC of 20 May 1998 concerning State aid for the processing and marketing of German agricultural products which might be granted on the basis of existing regional aid schemes (OJ 1999 L 60, p. 61) — Obligation on Germany to repeal the existing aid schemes which are inconsistent with the framework proposed by the Commission in its communication concerning such aid — Temporal scope of that obligation — Possibility for the Member State concerned to not repeal the aid in question for investments envisaged before the expiration of the period for the implementation of the decision and before the publication of the intention of the Member State to repeal the aid for such investments where the investment in question has been made after the implementation of the decision.

Operative part of the judgment

Article 2 of Commission Decision 1999/183/EC of 20 May 1998 concerning State aid for the processing and marketing of German agricultural products which might be granted on the basis of existing regional aid schemes must be interpreted as precluding the grant of investment aid concerning milling in relation to which the binding investment decision was made before the expiration of the period afforded to the Federal Republic of Germany to comply with that decision or before the publication in the Bundessteuerblatt of the measures taken to that effect, when the delivery of the capital asset and the determination and disbursement of the subsidy took place only after the expiration of that period or that publication, if the time at which an investment subsidy is considered to be granted is only after the expiration of that period. It is for the referring court to determine when an investment subsidy, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, must be considered to be granted, by taking account of all the conditions laid down by national law for obtaining the aid in question and ensuring that the prohibition laid down in Article 2(1) of Decision 1999/183 is not circumvented.

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(<span class="super">1</span>) OJ C 174, 16.6.2012.