Action brought on 20 February 2009 - France v Commission

(Case T-79/09)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicant: French Republic (represented by: E. Belliard, G. de Bergues and A.-L. Vendrolini, Agents)

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities

Form of order sought

annul the contested decision;

order the Commission to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

By this action, the applicant seeks annulment of Commission Decision C(2008) 7846 final of 10 December 2008 by which the Commission found that the compulsory voluntary levies collected by the inter-branch organisations from members of the professions which they represent for the purpose of financing actions capable of being carried out by those organisations were a measure constituting State Aid within the meaning of Article 87(1) EC.

In support of its action, the application puts forward, with regard to the substance, a plea in law alleging:

failure to take account of the definition of State Aid within the meaning of Article 87(1) EC inasmuch as the Commission found, contrary to what the French Government maintains, that those compulsory voluntary levies constitute parafiscal contributions, that is to say, State resources, although:

the procedure for recognising inter-branch organisations and the extension procedure for inter-branch agreements cannot be considered to be means for the State to implement a particular policy which it has previously defined;

the basis of assessment, the amount, the treatment and the use of compulsory voluntary levies are fixed by the inter-branch organisations in their agreements, the public authorities not intervening at any stage;

the compulsory voluntary levies are to be mandatorily used to finance the action for which they are intended and can never be put at the disposal of the public authorities;

persons liable to pay compulsory voluntary levies necessarily benefit from actions financed by those levies and all the operators in the sector bear the cost as purchasers or vendors of the produce concerned.

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