Judgment_paragraph 60 · AS Veejaam and OÜ Espo v AS Elering (C-470/20)

60Secondly, the national courts are bound, under EU law, to order the aid recipient to pay interest in respect of the period of unlawfulness of that aid. That obligation, which is incumbent on the national courts, stems from the fact that the implementation of aid in breach of Article 108(3) TFEU gives the aid recipient an undue advantage consisting, first, in the non-payment of the interest which it would have paid on the amount in question of the compatible aid, had it had to borrow that amount on the market pending the Commission’s final decision, and, secondly, in the improvement of its competitive position as against the other operators in the market while the aid concerned is unlawful. The unlawfulness of that aid will, first, expose those operators to the risk, in the result unrealised, of the implementation of incompatible aid, and, secondly, make them suffer, earlier than they would have had to, in competition terms, the effects of compatible aid (judgment of 24 November 2020, Viasat Broadcasting UK, C‑445/19, EU:C:2020:952, paragraphs 26 and 27 and the case-law cited).