The EU fines Basque councils with 30 million euros for fiscal incentives

The Luxembourg Court has already sanctioned. Basque Provincial Councils must pay a fine of 30 million euros, to understand and repeatedly breached not only the decisions of the European Commission but especially an earlier judgment rendered by this Court Community in 2006 , which declared illegal several aid tax applied in Bizkaia , Alava and Gipuzkoa. These tax incentives were in place in the early 90s and assumed important tax breaks for start-ups and also for the significant investments that performed





The EU judges have been kinder than expected. Initially, the Committee requested that sanction escalase up to 64 million euros, because the attitude of the councils was considered " very serious" . The general counsel assisting the court and has a similar role to that of the tax , the amount was lowered to 50 million and now the court , in its judgment , has definitely set at 30 million. Somewhat less than half of the starting amount .


Bizkaia Provincial Council believes the EU fine is " excessive and unfair "
Cebek considered " excessive " amount of European fine

While it is clear that those who violated the obligation to recover the aid were outlawed councils, it looks like it will open in the next few days about who polémicaz live and in what proportion they pay the fine . The Court has not detailed as it should be initially the central government who pay it, but then the weight should be realized that fall on each regional territory . Even Álava and Gipuzkoa have already noted that the Basque Government should assume the payment of 70 % of this amount .