This one figure alone shows the paramount impact of the financial crisis on State aid policy: since the beginning of the crisis and the collapse of Lehman Brothers, an overall amount of 4.589 trillion euros has been approved as crisis-related State aid in Europe... This is almost equal to 39% of the European Union’s Gross Domestic Product! By way of comparison, the current annual volume of “real economy” State aid, which has remained rather stable recently, tops at aroun