On 19 June 2013, the Commission found Spain in breach of State aid rules when they granted public subsidies to the DTT platform operators in remote regions during the process of digital switchover.

The Commission found a breach of the State aid rules on the basis that the funding was exclusively given to DTT, without consideration of other platforms like satellite, cable, internet etc. The DTT platform operators will now have to pay back €260 million to the State.

In short, Spain was held to have not carried out the digital switchover in a technology neutral way. This decision follows precedents set in previous cases concerned with public subsidies to assist the process of digital switchover (e.g. Cases T-8/06, T-21/06 and T-24/06, Berlin-Brandenburg and Case T-177/07, Mediaset).

The Commission is currently investigating a second State aid case concerning Spanish broadcasting, namely with respect to the compensation granted for simulcasting during the migration from 800 MHz.

However, in this ongoing case, the issue of platform neutrality should not be relevant because compensation for simulcasting does not determine the destination platform, and therefore the issue of platform neutrality is outside the scope of the investigation. After all, the policy decision for the DTT platform has already been made during the switchover process.