L 334/62 Official Journal of the European Union 12.12.2008 II (Acts adopted under the EC Treaty/Euratom Treaty whose publication is not obligatory) DECISIONS COMMISSION COMMISSION DECISION of 20 May 2008 concerning aid granted by France to the Fund for the prevention of risks to fishing and fisheries undertakings (State aid C 9/06) (notified under document number C(2007) 5636) (Only the French text is authentic) (Text with EEA relevance) (2008/936EC) THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular the first subparagraph of Article 88(2) thereof, Having called on the parties concerned to submit their comments under that Article, Whereas: 1. PROCEDURE The Commission was aware of information relating to the existence of a fund intended to compensate for the rise in the price of fuel affecting French fisheries under- takings since 2004. According to that information, the declared objective of the fund, called the Fund for the prevention of risks to fishing (FPAP), was to even out short-term variations in the price of fuel for the fishing industry, but in practice it enabled the undertakings to benefit from a fuel price much lower than the market price. Apparently it was planned, at the beginning, for the Fund to operate solely on the basis of contributions from the trade. The operating principle would have been simple: the Fund would have borne that part of the cost of fuel higher than a specified reference price per litre and, in return, the undertakings would have paid contributions to the FPAP when the price of fuel fell back to below the reference price. In this way, a balance for financing the system would have been struck without there being any contribution from public funds. However, since the market price for fuel always stayed very considerably above the reference price, the Commission took the view that operation of the FPAP was only possible as a result of the financial contribution from the State and that that financial contribution constituted State aid within the meaning of Article 87 of the EC Treaty. On 25 August 2005 the Commission requested France to inform it, by 5 September 2005, whether specific measures had been adopted or were envisaged by the State to counter the increase in fuel costs. The Commission also pointed out that if such measures involved State aid it had to be notified of them under Article 88(3) of the Treaty. In the absence of a reply, and in accordance with Article 10 of Council Regulation (EC) No 659/1999 of 22 March 1999 laying down detailed rules for the appli- cation of Article 93 (now Article 88) of the EC Treaty (1), on 21 September 2005 the Commission requested France to provide it, within three weeks, with infor- mation on the Fund in order for it to be able to examine whether it actually involved State aid and, if so, whether or not that State aid was compatible with the common market. () O] L 83, 27.3.1999, p. 1.