The EU Court of Justice rules that the national courts dealing with a case of recovery of illegal state aid may not disregard the statement of position made by the Commission in the relevant decision (Mediaset)

The Role of National Courts in Recovery of Incompatible State Aid* Introduction In December I examined the judgment in the case of Lufthansa v Frankfurt-Hahn, which laid down certain obligations for national courts whenever they are petitioned to suspend and even recover aid that happens to be at the same time under investigation by the Commission. In this article I review the judgment of the Court of Justice of 13 February 2014 in the long-running saga of the Italian decoders. It is an interesting and solid ruling, which makes more precise and also expands the tasks of national courts. Background In 2007, the Commission investigated a measure concerning aid given by the Italian government to individuals to purchase decoders in order to receive signals from digital terrestrial