In accordance with the traditional approach, State aid procedure is regarded as a dialogue between the European Commission and the Member States, in which third parties, whether they be beneficiaries, or the beneficiaries’ actual or potential competitors or even complainants, are classified merely as “sources of information”. In the well known Sytraval case (C-367/05 P), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) squashed the hopes of third parties that had built up, for a shor