Action brought on 25 July 2012 - European Commission v Italian Republic

(Case C-353/12)

Language of the case: Italian

Parties

Applicant: European Commission (represented by: S. Thomas, D. Grespan and B. Stromsky, acting as Agents)

Defendant: Italian Republic

Form of order sought

The Commission claims that the Court should:

declare that, by failing to take, within the prescribed period, all the measures necessary to recover the State aid considered unlawful and incompatible with the internal market by Commission Decision C(2009) 8123 of 28 October 2009 on State aid C 59/07 (ex N 127/06 and NN 13/06) implemented by Italy for Ixfin SpA (notified on 29 October 2009 and published in OJ 2010 L 167, p. 39), the Italian Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under Articles 2, 3 and 4 of that decision and under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union;

order the Italian Republic to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The subject of the Commission's action is the non-implementation by the Italian Republic of the Commission's decision on State aid in the form of a guarantee provided by the Ministry of Economic Development for a loan taken out by Ixfin with Banca Apulia SpA.

The Commission points out that the Italian Republic should have ensured fulfilment of its obligation to recover the aid by 1 March 2010 and, in addition, should have informed the Commission by 29 December 2009 of the measures taken to implement the decision.

At the time the present action was brought, the Italian Republic had not yet taken all the measures necessary for discharging those obligations.

____________