Press Release: State aid: Commission endorses EUR3.8 million in environmental aid to ACEA Group in Italy, provided previous aid is recovered first

The European Commission on 16 March 2005 authorised, under the EC Treaty's rules on state aid, environmental aid to a district heating project in Rome. However, the Commission decided that the aid could not be granted until the beneficiary, part of the ACEA group, had reimbursed a previous aid that the Commission had declared illegal and incompatible in 2002 (see IP/02/817). The Commission considered that the cumulation of the aid from which ACEA benefited in 2002 and the new notified aid could have particularly distortive effects.