In its Judgment in Zweckverband Tierkörperbeseitigung v Commission, T-309/12, EU:T:2014:676, the GC has assessed the compatibility with EU State aid rules of a system of financial support to the maintenance of reserve animal disposal capacity in the case of epizootic. It is a very long and complicated Judgment and its reading is not easy, as the only available versions are in French and German. However, it is a case that should not go unnoticed. In my view, it raises two very fundamental questions where the position of the GC (and the Commission) is at least highly contentious and it will be good to see if a further appeal to the CJEU opens a door to some clarification in this area of EU economic law.
The first contentious issue is the economic or non-economic character of the activity at stake. In para 86 of the Judgment [and relying by analogy on the reasoning in FENIN, C-205/03, EU:C:2006:453 at para 26 and in Mitteldeutsche Flughafen and Flughafen Leipzig-Halle v Commission, C-288/11 P, EU:C:2012:821 at para 44 (but quoting its own argument in T-443/08 at para 95, which the CJEU later endorsed)] the GC concludes that "even if it is true that the applicant was required to maintain a reserve capacity in the event of an epidemic (rectius, epizootic), it does not mean that the implementation of this obligation by the applicant was related to the exercise of the prerogatives of public power" (emphasis added). In my view, and for reasons that I still need to articulate fully, this does not make good sense. However, this is a point I would like to reserve for the near future.
The second contentious issue is that, in the overall assessment of the GC, the fact that the arrangement between the affected German lander (and a multiplicity of regional and local authorities) and the public undertaking providing the reserve animal disposal capacity in the case of epizootic was covered by exceptions to the EU public procurement rules (either under the Teckal in-house exception or the Hamburg public-public cooperation exception, which is not entirely clear in the case) did not have any effect on the application of the Altmark criteria to the case. I know that this is an issue riddled with nuances and jargon stemming from public procurement rules, but I will try to disentangle it in a way that shows the difficulty created by the GC finding, as I see it.
Under the Altmark criteria (4th condition), compliance with applicable public procurement rules is a requirement for State aid granted to the provider of services of economic interest (acknowledgely, an issue related with the first point) to be compatible with Articles 107(1) and 106(2) SGEI (rectius, for State aid not to exist due to the lack of economic advantage) [for discussion, see A Sánchez Graells (2013), "The Commission’s Modernization Agenda for Procurement and SGEI" in E Szyszczak & J van de Gronden (eds.), Financing SGEIs: State Aid Reform and Modernisation, Series Legal Issues of Services of General Interest (TMC Asser Press/Springer) 161-181]. In the absence of procurement procedures for the selection of the provider, the level of economic support needs to be "determined on the basis of an analysis of the costs which a typical undertaking, well run and adequately provided with [material means] so as to be able to meet the necessary public service requirements, would have incurred in discharging those obligations, taking into account the relevant receipts and a reasonable profit for discharging the obligations". This is a fiendish exercise and, generally speaking, procurement is a much easier road. Hence, structurally, there is a clear pressure on public authorities to resort to procurement procedures in order to be on the safe side re compliance with State aid rules.
At the same time, however, it should be highlighted that public authorities have no obligation to resort to the market in order to discharge their (public service) missions and they are fundamentally free to either cooperate with other public authorities (Hamburg) or entrust the execution of those activities in-house (Teckal). This is an area where the clash between EU Institutions and Member States has been evident and the recently approved Directive 2014/24 tries to provide a compromise solution in Art 12 by recognising that in those cases a public procurement procedure is not required (and allowing for the instrumental entities used to even carry out market activities up to a 20% of their average total turnover).
In my view, the fact that public procurement rules allow for the avoidance of public tenders in the award of public contracts [including those for the provision of public services (broadly defined)] to public undertakings or other contracting authorities, creates a difficulty from a State aid/procurement interaction perspective. The basic difficulty derives from the fact that a perfectly legal decision to keep certain activities within the public sector creates very significant difficulties for the funding of that activity as soon as there is any (potential) interaction with the market--which, at least under the new rules in Art 12 of Dir 2014/24, is also a perfectly legal situation. This is a structural problem of coordination of both sets of rules that comes to put pressure on the viability of keeping the Altmark criteria untouched.
Indeed, following the general reasoning of the GC in Zweckverband Tierkörperbeseitigung, the absence of a procurement procedure (despite the fact that it was not required) excludes the possibility to benefit from the presumption set out in the 4th Altmark condition and creates a significant risk of breach of EU State aid rules. From the perspective of the consistency of the procurement system and the effectiveness of the general consensus that the procurement rules "should [not] deal with the liberalisation of services of general economic interest, reserved to public or private entities, or with the privatisation of public entities providing services" [Rec (6) Dir 2014/24] , this is problematic. The increased risks of infringement of State aid rules brings a very important limitation on the contracting authorities' actual freedom to resort to schemes covered by Art 12 of Directive 2014/24 and creates a clear incentive for overcompliance with public procurement rules.
Regardless of the benefits that more compliance with procurement rules and public tenders could bring about, the clear limits that EU constitutional rules (and the principle of neutrality of ownership in Art 345 TFEU in particular) create need to be respected and duly acknowldeged. Hence the difficulty in coordinating all these sets of provisions in a manner that is respectful with both the split of competences between Member States and the EU, and the effectiveness of EU State aid rules.
In my view, the CJEU should use the opportunity to clarify these complicated issues in case the GC's Zweckverband Tierkörperbeseitigung Judgment is further appealed. In the meantime, there are lots of issues that require further thought and, in particular, how to exactly reach the adequate balance in the coordination of both sets of rules.
