Seven years ago, Germany imposed levies on power bills to subsidize the development of renewable sources such as wind turbines and solar panels, but exempted from the surcharge firms that were heavy users of energy, such as aluminum or copper, to avoid affecting their competitiveness.
The EU Commission said this was illegal state aid and ordered a partial recovery of the discount granted to those firms, which in total was estimated at about 5 billion euros ($5.6 billion).
But the EU top court said the commission failed to establish that the advantages provided by the 2012 German law were illegal state aid. It also said the EU court of first instance “was wrong” when in 2016 it stated that those subsidies were illegal….
An excerpt from Wiky