EU Takes Greece To Court Over State Aid To Shipyard

BRUSSELS, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 22nd july,2016) : The European Commission on Friday took Greece to court for failing to recover more than 250 million Euros ($275 million) in what it considered to be illegal state aid to Hellenic Shipyards. The case dates back to 2008 and deals with one of Greece's biggest ship-building yards that is now owned by Abu Dhabi MAR, the Emirates-based shipbuilding group. "More than seven years after its adoption, Greece still has not implemented the Commission decision of June 2008, ordering the recovery of over 250 million euros of unlawful state aid to Hellenic Shipyards," the commission, the EU's executive arm, said in a statement.

It also asked the European Court of Justice, the EU's highest court, to impose on Greece a one-off penalty of about 6 million euros, plus a daily penalty of 34,974 euros from the day of its judgement in 2012 until the date Greece complies. In 2008, Brussels found that some loans, guarantees and capital injections granted to the shipyard between 1996 and 2002 when it was in dire straits failed to meet EU state aid rules. The shipyard was privatised in 2002 and became part of German steel group ThyssenKrupp, which sold it to Abu Dhabi MAR in 2010 at the worst of the Greek debt crisis.