Brussels opened a thorough investigation on Friday of the contracts awarded by the French authorities to the private company Corsica Linea to serve Corsica, to determine whether they complied with European competition law.
The French authorities have awarded Corsica Linea (ex-SNCM) three public service delegation contracts relating to connections between Marseille and the Corsican ports of Ajaccio, Bastia and Ile Rousse, for the period from October 1, 2019 to December 31 2020.
"The European Commission considers, as a preliminary, that the three contracts constitute state aid," she said in a statement.
State aid is still subject to very strict monitoring by the European executive to the extent that it can bring an unfair advantage to a company to the detriment of its rivals and therefore generate distortion. of competition in the Union. They are in principle prohibited, but there may be exceptions.
In the case of the three contracts awarded to Corsica Linea, the Commission points out that they 'do not at this stage meet any of the cumulative criteria defined by the EU Court of Justice in its Altmark judgment to exclude the presence of state aid ”.
Doubts on several points
The so-called Altmark judgment - rendered in July 2003 by European justice and which concerned a dispute between two bus companies over the service of a German locality - governs the allocation of State aid paid in compensation for the performance of a public service by a private company.
The Court of Justice of the EU had then confirmed that Community law did not preclude the establishment or subsidization of services of general economic interest, but determined four conditions of transparency which had to be fulfilled in order for these subsidies are not considered state aid.
In the case of Corsica Linea, Brussels expresses doubts on several points. In particular, it is not certain that "the inclusion of passenger transport in public service contracts is necessary, given the presence on the market of a significant commercial offer developed from the neighboring port of Toulon".
Besides Marseille, two other continental ports in France serve Corsica: Toulon and Nice.
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- Marseilles
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