Commission Decision of 29 September 2010 concerning the aid scheme C 4/09 (ex N 679/97) implemented by France to promote radio broadcasting (notified under document C(2010) 6483) (Only the French text is authentic) (Text with EEA relevance) (2011/147/EU)

Article 2

To remove the discrimination suffered by foreign broadcasters who paid the charge on advertising companies to the French State without the possibility of benefiting from the aid scheme, the French authorities shall reimburse the parafiscal charge collected from foreign operators between 1997 and 2002. Within six months of the date when this decision is notified, they shall inform all the operators who paid the charges to be reimbursed, in each case where they can identify them and send notices, by means of adequate publicity, so that the operators concerned can come forward. The French authorities shall give them three years to submit a reimbursement request(1). Following such a call and on the basis of the evidence presented by the operators in question, France shall, within six months at most from the date of submission of the reimbursement request, reimburse the amount of charges incompatible with the internal market plus the interest actually accrued, calculated on a compound basis using as an objective benchmark rate, by analogy, the rate referred to in Article 9 of Regulation (EC) No 794/2004.

(1)

In accordance with the conditions set out in recital 34.