Recovery of unlawful State aid: the role of national courts in the private enforcement of State aid rules

peer reviewedThe 2005 Action Plan is the starting point of several initiatives of the European Commission to promote “private enforcement” in the field of State aid law. Third parties have been benefiting from the reinforced role played by national courts and have been seen as the guarantee for a better enforcement at national level, especially with respect to recovery of unlawful aid. However, major obstacles are remaining: complexity of the rules, variety of national procedural rules. Over the past few years, the Commission has been clarifying existing remedies that third parties have at their disposal. However, recent examples of national case law illustrate the difficulty for national judges to assimilate certain essential principles of Community law