The EU Institutions have now reached political agreement in relation to the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, a potentially far-reaching instrument that effectively creates a new subsidy control regime for non-EU subsidies affecting the EU's internal market. This article addresses the key substantive assessments that the European Commission will need to consider when investigating foreign subsidies under the Regulation, namely: (i) the existence of a ‘foreign subsidy’; (ii) whether the subsidy causes a ‘distortion’ in the internal market; (iii) whether the negative effects in the internal market may be balanced by any positive effects of the subsidy; and (iv) the determination of redressive measures or commitments required to address the distortions. It identifies a number of significant open issues and questions that could have a substantial effect on how the Regulation operates and ultimately, its impact in practice on competitive conditions within the internal market.
Keywords: foreign subsidies; WTO; distortion; balancing; redressive measures