State aid: Commission refers Spain to Court for failure to recover incompatible aid from digital terrestrial television operators and suspend payments

On the 10 January 2017, the European Commission referred Spain to the EU Court of Justice for failing to recover incompatible state aid paid towards the digitisation of its television network and to suspend all ongoing payments for its operation and maintenance.

In October 2014 and June 2013, the Commission adopted two decisions finding that State aid granted by Spain to finance the transition from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT) in remote areas of, respectively, Castilla-la-Mancha and the rest of Spain was incompatible with EU State aid rules.
More than three and a half years after the first decision and more than two years after the second one, the Spanish authorities have only recovered a small fraction of the aid.

As a result of the delay in implementing the decisions, the distortion of competition in the relevant market continued. The Commission was particularly concerned by the continuous payments of illegal subsidies to the detriment of other operators.