The EU commission opens an investigation on the public subsidies distributed to French companies SNCM and CMN



The EU commission has announced the start of a groundbreaking investigation in order to establish if the compensations received from the French companies of navigation SNCM (Société Nationale Maritime Run Méditerranée) and CMN the Méridionale in order to operate the respective marine services of line between the Corsica and Marseilles are consistent to the norms of the European Union on the aids of State.

The Commission have specified of wanting to ascertain the necessity and the proportionality of the distributed economic amounts in the within of the conventions of public service of marine transport stipulated with the two companies of navigation and wanting for a reason or purpose to assess the fairness of the mechanism of definition of the distributed amounts of compensation.

Remembering that SNCM and CMN operate services of marine transport between Marseilles and the Corsica for the period 2007-2013 within a convention undersigned with the regional authorities race territorial Collectivité de Run Corse and Office DES transports de, the EU commission has explained not to exclude that the received compensating amounts from the two companies can give they an advantage regarding the competitors on the market, in violation of the communitarian norms on the services of general economic interest. Brussels has asked therefore the French authorities to demonstrate the real necessity to resort to the convention of public service, service that could instead be guaranteed from the sun market forces without the resource to financings publics.

Moreover the EU commission doubts that the parameters of the shim mechanism are predetermined in objective and transparent way and have asked additional information in order to estimate if the companies have benefitted of sovracompensazioni and if the amounts assigned they are calculated correctly.

At last, the Commission will estimate if the process of selection in order to characterize the companies of navigation available to operate the services in the within of the conventions has been suitable to guarantee a effective and sufficient competition to the aim to characterize the companies in a position to supplying the services to the minor cost at the expense of the collectivity.