Presence of State resources. The measure must be granted by the State or through State resources. Municipal resources are State resources for the purposes of Article 61(1).
Presence of State resources. The aid measure must be granted by the State or through State resources. The damage compensation for ship lifts in Article 26(3) subparagraph 3 of the Harbour Act, as amended by Act No 28/2007, is granted by the Harbour Improvement Fund, which for that purpose received a budgetary allocation of ISK 200 million from the Treasury. The budgetary allocation constitutes State resources. This classification as State resources is not altered by the fact that the money is channelled through the Harbour Improvement Fund. Article 26(1) of the Harbour Act states that the Harbour Impro- vement Fund is owned by the State and that the Harbour Council (hafnaráð) acts as its board of directors on behalf of the Minister of Transport. The Harbour Council is appointed by the Minister of Transport pursuant to Article 4 of Act No 7/1996 on the Maritime Agency (lög um Siglingastofnun Íslands). Accor- dingly, the Harbour Improvement Fund is a public law body. Part of the financing of the Fund comes directly from the State budget as decided by Parliament. According to Article 26(3) the Harbour Council disposes of the income of the Fund, following recommendations from the Maritime Agency and subject to the approval of the Minister of Transport, as further laid down in subparagraphs 1 to 3. The Maritime Agency is responsible for the administration of the Fund according to paragraph 4 of that Article. The Harbour Improvement Fund carries out public tasks as laid down in the Harbour Act. The Authority therefore takes the preliminary view that support granted by the Harbour Improvement Fund is imputable to the State (1) and constitutes State resources within the meaning of Article 61(1) of the EEA Agreement.
Presence of State resources. Support directly from the Treasury, as referred to in Article 24 of the 2003 Harbour Act, constitutes budgetary allocations which qualify as State resources within the meaning of Article 61(1) of the EEA Agreement. As outlined above, the support by the Harbour Improvement Fund for damage compensation to harbour constructions consti- tutes State resources (see above, Section II-1.1.1 of this Deci- sion).
Presence of State resources. The support scheme is financed by the Norwegian State over the State budget. The measures in question are therefore granted by the State through State resources.
Presence of State resources. The contested funding consisting of a direct grant allocated in the context of the Revised National Budget, or of monies disbursed by the local authorities, these monies were granted by the State or through State resources.
Presence of State resources. Condition 1 above is directed at all aid financed from public resources. It is thus clear that aid from the NDEA falls within the scope of State resources. Sale of publicly owned land and buildings below market value implies that State resources are involved. However, the Chapter on State aid elements in sales of land and buildings provides for two cases where, if the applicable conditions are met, the price paid for the property will be held to correspond to fair market value therefore excluding the presence of State resources. Two situations should be distinguished: cases where the sale has taken place through an unconditional bidding procedure (see
(i) below) and those where the sale has been carried out with reference to value assessments carried out by independent experts (see (ii) below).
(i) Sale through an unconditional bidding procedure The Norwegian authorities recognise that ‘the process started out as an unconditional bidding procedure regarding the sale of parts of the air base. Advertisements listing possible uses of the air base were published in different newspapers such as Farsund Avis, Fedrelandsvennen and Stavanger Aftenblad in 2000’. Neither the advertisements nor the so-called ‘Lista conference’ led to any sale. The process did not cover the case of a sale of the air base en bloc. The Authority therefore considers that there was no unconditional bidding procedure in connection with the sale of the air base en bloc and that the possibility to preclude the existence of State aid on the basis of the relevant Chapter of the State Aid Guidelines is therefore excluded.
(ii) Sale without an unconditional bidding procedure Section 2.2 of the State Aid Guidelines — Chapter on State Aid elements in sales of land and buildings by public authorities, regarding sale without an unconditional bidding procedure provides that ‘if public authorities intend not to use the procedure described under Section 2.1, an independent evaluation should be carried out by one or more independent asset valuers prior to the sale negotiations in order to publish the market value on the basis of gene- rally accepted market indicators and valuation standards. The market price thus established, is the minimum purchase price that can be agreed without granting State aid’. (emphasis added) The Norwegian authorities have indicated that ‘in the beginning of 2002, sales negotiations were initiated with the real estate develo- pers Intervest Eiendom AS and Interconsult Prosjekt...
Presence of State resources. Should the air base have been rented out at a price below market value, the condition regarding involvement of State resources would be met for the same reasons as those set out above regarding the sale of the air base. On the basis of the information it has been provided with at this stage, the Authority has doubts that the value of the rent paid under the LILAS agreement corresponded to fair market value. Indeed, the Norwegian authorities themselves have admitted that the rent was below market value. In such a case, the difference between the amount actually paid by the tenant and the market value of the property would result in State resources having been involved.
Presence of State resources. The aid measure must be granted by the State or through State resources. According to the notified scheme, the cooperatives mentioned in Section 10-50 of the Tax Act will be entitled to a special form of tax deduction. Hence, these cooperatives may deduct allocations to equity capital from their income. The tax deduction implies that the tax payable by the cooperatives covered by the scheme is reduced. Hence, the measure consti- tutes a loss of tax revenues for the Norwegian State, estimated by the Norwegian authorities to amount to between approxima- tely NOK 35 and 40 million (approximately EUR 4-5 million) for the fiscal year 2007. Consequently, State resources are involved.
Presence of State resources. The measure must involve the consumption of State resources and/or be granted by the State. The State for the purpose of Article 61(1) of the EEA Agreement covers all bodies of the state administration, from the central government to the municipality level or the lowest administrative level as well as public undertakings and bodies. The municipality of Vefsn covers the annual deficit of the KLC as a whole. Municipal resources are State resources within the meaning of Article 61 of the EEA Agreement (1). From 2006 to 2008, the fitness centre at the KLC has operated with an annual surplus, which stems from the revenue generated by user fees (2). On the other hand, the KLC as a whole, has run with an annual deficit that has been covered by the operating budget of the municipality of Vefsn. The Authority notes that the municipality of Vefsn controls the ticketing system at the KLC; the prices, the types of tickets offered and the system of allocation of ticket revenue is determined by the municipal council. If the municipality allocates ticket revenues to the fitness centre beyond those collected from the actual users of the premises of the fitness centre, these ticket revenues will qualify as State resources within the meaning of Article 61(1) of the EEA Agreement. A system of allocation of ticket revenue, under the complete control of public authorities, can involve State aid where the principles of allocation do not correspond to the customers’ use of the different facilities. The criteria applied for the allocation of revenue generated by the sale of tickets granting admission to the KLC do not appear to be particularly exact. Under the current system, all revenues generated by the sale of all-access season tickets are allocated to the fitness centre although these tickets enable the holder to access other facilities of the KLC. All revenues stemming from the various single tickets, including single tickets giving access to the fitness centre, are allocated to the other facilities at the KLC. As described in Section
Presence of State resources. (85) In order to constitute State aid within the meaning of Article 61(1) of the EEA Agreement, the aid must be granted by the State or through State resources.
(86) As a preliminary point, both local and regional authorities are considered to be equivalent to the State (52). Hence, Oslo Municipality is equivalent to the State for the purposes of the EEA State aid rules.
(87) In the present case it is clear that the State, in the capacity of Oslo Municipality, provided funding to AS Oslo Sporveier for carrying out scheduled bus transport until 1997. For the period 1997-2008 it is undisputed that AS Oslo Sporveier passed on the annual compensation to AS Sporveisbussene, according to the terms of the Transport Agreement, which appears in essence to have formalised the previous unwritten administrative practice of calculating the annual compensation (53).
(88) As regards the 2004 capital injection into AS Sporveisbussene to cover the underfunding of the pension fund it is undisputed that the State, in the capacity of Oslo Municipality, contributed NOK 111 760 000 as capital for AS Sporveisbussene.
(89) The Authority therefore comes to the preliminary conclusion that the 2004 capital injection and the compensation to AS Oslo Sporveier, and then to AS Sporveisbussene (via AS Oslo Sporveier) for carrying out bus transport services in Oslo were granted by the State and financed by State resources.