Zweden, Tsjechië en Oostenrijk moeten richtlijn voor financiële transparantie doorvoeren om te voldoen aan EU-regelgeving voor staatssteun (en)

The European Commission has decided to send a formal reminder to Sweden about its obligation to comply with a ruling of the Court of Justice (case C-141/03, 15 July 2004) that the Kingdom has failed to fulfil its obligations under the EC Treaty by not implementing the Commission Directive on the transparency of financial relations between Member States and public undertakings (2000/52/EC, amending Directive 80/723/EC). The reminder takes the form of a letter of formal notice under Article 228 of the EC Treaty. The Commission has also issued a formal request to Austria to implement correctly the same Directive (2002/52/EC) and four formal requests to the Czech Republic to implement the original Directive 80/723/EC and the three amending Directives (85/413/EC, 93/84/EC and 2002/52/EC). The formal requests take the form of reasoned opinions, the second stage of the infringement procedure under Article 226 of the EC Treaty If Austria and the Czech Republic do not take the necessary measures to comply with the reasoned opinion within two months of receipt, the Commission may refer them to the European Court of Justice.

"European citizens need and deserve high-quality public or general interest services. It is in the taxpayers' interests to ensure that money for public services is used as it should be - to pay for the real costs of providing these services, rather than being illicitly diverted to subsidise commercial activities. Our transparency rules allow proper scrutiny of the accounts of undertakings entrusted with services of general interest or enjoying special or exclusive rights and so guard against such abuses ", commented Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes i.

Commission Directive 80/723/EC places a double transparency requirement on Member States. Firstly, the Directive ensures the transparency of financial relations between public authorities and public undertakings through separate accounting for commercial and for public service activities. Secondly vis-à-vis the Commission, the Directive requires the member States to record certain financial data and to disclose them to the Commission upon request as well as to present annual reports to the Commission. Directives 85/413/EC and 93/84/EC clarified the scope of these obligations.

Commission Directive 2000/52/EC extended these transparency requirements to include not only public undertakings but also companies which, on the one hand, operate services of general economic interest and receive compensation in the form of payments or special or exclusive rights and which, on the other hand, also carry out commercial operations. The Directive aims at enabling the Commission to investigate alleged over-compensation of public service costs and cross-subsidisation of commercial activities (see IP/00/763).

Member States had to bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with Directive 2000/52/EC at the latest by 31 July 2001 or by the date of accession (1 May 2004) for the ten new Member States. Almost four years after this date, the Directive has not been fully implemented by Austria or Sweden. In the case of the Czech Republic, more than one year has already expired since the country should have implemented the existing body of EU law, including all four transparency Directives.