José Luis Buendía Sierra

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 17 (2018), Issue 2, Page 173 - 176

Philipp Melcher

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 17 (2018), Issue 1, Page 137 - 139

György Wellmann, Anikó Keller

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 17 (2018), Issue 1, Page 130 - 132

Emma Besselink

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 17 (2018), Issue 1, Page 132 - 133

Pamela Hansson, Malin Persson

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 17 (2018), Issue 1, Page 140 - 141

Juan Jorge Piernas López

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 17 (2018), Issue 2, Page 274 - 281

Keywords: Regional tax on large retail establishments; Freedom of establishment; Protection of the environment and town and country planning; State aid; Selective measure; Letter from the Commission stating that no further action will be taken on a complaint; Existing aid.

Wout De Cock, Julie Leroy

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 17 (2018), Issue 2, Page 298 - 304

It is well established that the financial situation of an (insolvent) aid beneficiary does not lead, in principle, to an absolute impossibility to recover unlawful and incompatible State aid. In the annotated case, a Member State argued that it should be entitled to suspend the insolvency proceedings in order to examine the possible relaunch of the insolvent beneficiary’s activities. In this annotation, we discuss the findings of the European Court of Justice with regard to this question and argue that the Court’s findings remain vague and unclear. Furthermore, we discuss the relevant date to assess the failure to recover aid from an insolvent beneficiary and the duty of loyal cooperation between Member States and the Commission. In general, it is argued that the judgment is, in contrast to (parts of) the Opinion of the Advocate General, a mere confirmation of former case law and somewhat disappointing.Keywords: Recovery of unlawful State aid; Financial situation (insolvent) beneficiary; Possibility to suspend recovery proceedings and relaunch activities - Article 108(2)(2) TFEU; Date for assessing failure to recover; Duty of loyal cooperation

Phedon Nicolaides

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 17 (2018), Issue 2, Page 259 - 263

Hans Friederiszick, Ela Głowicka, Linda Gratz, Simone Lünenbürger, Andreas Rosenfeld

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 17 (2018), Issue 4, Page 509 - 524

The obligation to carry out an ex post evaluation of certain State aid measures was introduced in the European Union in 2014. This obligation represents an important element of the broader State Aid Modernisation initiative of DG Competition. In this article, we offer guidance, both from a legal and an economic perspective, on when an ex post evaluation is required, which methods are available and which methods are actually considered by Member States. More specifically, we propose a ‘traffic light system’, supporting a self-assessment of whether an ex post evaluation is required for a specific measure or not. Furthermore, we review the 24 evaluation plans which were approved by the European Commission by August 2018, with respect to the proposed approaches to the measurement of direct and indirect effects, appropriateness and proportionality. We find that the most common method considered by Member States in their evaluation plans is the econometric estimation of differences-in-differences. Keywords: State aid ex post evaluation; Environmental aid; Econometric estimation methods; Evaluation plans.

Nick Wright

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 17 (2018), Issue 4, Page 525 - 533

The UK has long regarded evaluation as a fundamental part of the policy development cycle and has had a broadly positive experience in meeting the new State aid evaluation requirements. This article sets out the UK’s approach to policy evaluations and considers the opportunity that the State aid requirements present to improve policies, but also notes that there can be a challenge in applying the Commission’s favoured counterfactual methodology, which might not be appropriate in all cases. The article recommends that the Commission continues to work with Member States to develop good practice, including accepting alternative methodologies when they are robust. This will help to ensure that the State aid evaluation requirements support both the effective delivery of policy, and support State aid compliance. The article concludes that, while there is always scope for improvement in the Commission’s approach, the requirements provide a real incentive for public authorities to accurately measure the effectiveness of State aid interventions in markets. This in turn facilitates evidence-based policy making, which should lead to better targeted measures that generate better policy outcomes. Keywords: Evaluation methodologies; State aid Modernisation; Effectiveness of aid.