APPRECIATION. 1. State aid within the meaning of Article 61(1) of the EEA Agreement Article 61(1) of the EEA Agreement reads as follows: ‘Save as otherwise provided in this Agreement, any aid granted by EC Member States, EFTA States or through State resources in any form whatsoever which distorts or threatens to distort competition by favouring certain undertakings or the production of certain goods shall, in so far as it affects trade between Contracting Parties, be incompatible with the functioning of this Agreement.’ This implies that for measures to be classified as State aid within the meaning of Article 61(1) of the EEA Agreement, they must be granted by the State or through State resources, confer an advantage on the reci- pient, be liable to affect trade between the Contracting Parties and distort competition. Beforehand, it needs to be clarified whether the HFF is subject to the application of Article 61(1) of the EEA Agreement, since it has been argued by the Icelandic Government, in the initial notification, that the HFF could not be qualified as an undertaking in the meaning of that Article. Firstly, the HFF is a separate State-owned institution set up by law, having its own board of directors and annual accounts. Secondly and more importantly, the Court of Justice of the European Communities (herei- nafter referred to as ‘the Court of Justice’) has repeatedly defined the concept of an undertaking as any entity engaged in an economic activity, which is any activity which offers goods or services on a given market, regardless of its legal status and the way in which it is financed (1). Although the Icelandic Government considers the HFF not to be a separate undertaking, as it operates only as a ‘branch of the State itself’, the Authority takes the view that the HFF is engaged in an economic activity. The economic activity consists of offering services on the market for housing mortgage loans, i.e. long-term house financing (for residential accommodation). Therefore, it is the Authority's preliminary conclusion that the HFF has to be qualified as an undertaking in the sense of Article 61(1) of the EEA Agreement.
APPRECIATION. 1. Introduction: the applicable legal framework According to the information submitted by the Norwegian authorities, the four projects which are assessed in this Decision were granted R&D aid in the framework of the Industrial R&D Programme (brukerstyrte forskningsprogrammer, case no 93-183). As mentioned above, the Industrial R&D Programme was already in place before 1994. Following the entry into force of the EEA Agreement in Norway, the Authority assessed the Industrial R&D Programme together with other existing aid schemes and adopted Decision No 217/94/COL in December 1994. In this Decision, the Authority proposed appropriate measures with respect to the Industrial R&D Programme to mainly require that awards of aid would be granted in accor- dance with the principles laid down in Chapter 14 of the State Aid Guidelines. The Norwegian authorities accepted the proposed appropriate measures. Thus, thereafter, any grant of aid under the Industrial R&D Programme had to be done in accordance with the R&D rules applicable when the Authority adopted Decision No 217/94/COL. The R&D rules applicable when the Authority adopted Decision No 217/94/COL were Chapter 14 of the State Aid Guidelines as adopted in 1994 (hereinafter referred to as the R&D Guidelines of 1994 (21)). Hence, by definition, any aid granted under the scheme Industrial R&D Programmes which does not comply with the provisions of the version of the R&D Guidelines applicable in 1994, when the Authority proposed the appropriate measures which Norway accepted, falls outside the scope of application of the scheme. Accordingly, such a measure would constitute new individual aid and would as such need to be notified to the Authority individually. In this context it is important to note that the present decision only concerns the application of the scheme Industrial R&D Programmes to the four concrete projects identified as relating to the development of the software programme Turborouter on which a complaint was lodged in 2002. Should the granting of aid to the four questioned projects not be covered by the scheme Industrial R&D Programmes as explained above, each of the projects would need to be assessed individually. In this assess- ment, the Authority would have to determine whether state aid was granted in each of the projects and whether this aid could have been considered compatible aid on the basis of the provisions of the R&D Guidelines applicable at the time where the grants were given or direc...
APPRECIATION. 1. The presence of State aid within the meaning of Article 61(1) EEA Article 61(1) of the EEA Agreement reads as follows: ‘Save as otherwise provided in this Agreement, any aid granted by EC Member States, EFTA States or through State resources in any form whatsoever which distorts or threatens to distort competition by favouring certain undertakings or the production of certain goods shall, in so far as it affects trade between Contracting Parties, be incompatible with the functioning of this Agreement’. According to the Authority's 2001 Decision, the compensation granted to the Hurtigruten companies under the Hurtigruten Agreement constitutes State aid within the meaning of Article 61(1) of the EEA Agreement. The Authority's assessment of the grants to the Hurtigruten companies in the 2001 Decision is relevant when assessing the additional aid granted to the companies for the year 2004. The following assessment will therefore, to a large extent, be based on the appreciation made in the 2001 Decision. The increased compensation to the Hurtigruten companies is financed directly through a budgetary alloca- tion and is thus granted directly by the State. Furthermore, the compensation relieves the companies of social security charges which they normally would have to bear in the ordinary course of business, and thus strengthens the position of these undertakings compared with other undertakings competing in intra-EEA trade. Moreover, the Hurtigruten companies are active on the markets for passenger and cargo transport and on the tourism market, in particular by offering cruises/round trips along the Norwegian coast. The Hurtig- ruten service to a large extent attracts foreign tourists, and the Hurtigruten companies thus compete with other undertakings offering similar services in attracting these customers. The compensation granted to the Hurtigruten companies can therefore have an effect on the competition on these markets, and is liable to affect trade between the Contracting Parties to the EEA Agreement. The Authority thus considers the payment to the Hurtigruten companies to constitute State aid within the meaning of Article 61 (1) of the EEA Agreement.
APPRECIATION. 1. The scope of the current State aid investigation The current State aid investigation started with a complaint regarding the concrete application of the VAT Compensation Act to a number of public undertakings involved in the provision of specialised educational services on a commercial basis. The State aid assessment of the allegations brought forward by the comp- lainant is however intrinsically linked to the analysis of the VAT Compensation Act. Therefore, in the present decision, the Authority carries out an assessment of the VAT Compensation Act as such in relation to the State aid rules of the EEA Agreement.
APPRECIATION