NETHERLANDS STATE AID
July 1st, 2002
Keith NuthallTHE EUROPEAN Commission has ordered the Dutch government recover maritime transport aid it has paid out since 1996 to port and inland waterway towage operations, ruling that these payments broke EU state aid rules. Brussels approved subsidies from the Netherlands to towage operators, but had assumed that this money was for limited to ships working on the open seas. The wider application of the handouts sparked complaints, notably from German companies towing in the ports of Hamburg and Bremen, where the subsidised Dutch exploited an opening of EU ...
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