Phedon Nicolaides, Maria Kleis

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 13 (2014), Issue 4, Page 636 - 649

The new Guidelines on State Aid for Environmental Protection and Energy which were adopted on the 9th of April 2014 are broader in scope than the previous Guidelines. This article argues that the provisions of the EEAG with respect to reductions of environmental taxes and green levies are inadequate in several respects. In particular, they are weak on the necessity and proportionality of aid. The article also considers the inclusion of generation adequacy objectives i

Phedon Nicolaides, Maria Kleis, Mihalis Kekelekis

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 7 (2008), Issue 1, Page 7

I. Introduction Article 87(1) of the EC Treaty declares any form of State aid to be incompatible with the common market. This incompatibility effectively means that any public measure that satisfies the criteria laid down in Article 87(1) is in principle prohibited unless it can qualify for one of the exceptions allowed by the Treaty, primarily in Article 87(2)&(3). Commission Regulation 1998/2006 of 15 December 2006 on the application of Articles 87

Phedon Nicolaides, Maria Kleis

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 6 (2007), Issue 4, Page 23

I. Introduction Public funding of „general infrastructure“ is not state aid and, therefore, is in principle not prohibited by Article 87(1) of the EC Treaty. The reason is that this kind of public funding does not confer an advantage to any specific undertaking. By contrast, public funding of „user-specific infrastructure“ does confer an advantage to certain undertakings and is normally regarded to be a form of state aid. However, in practice it

Maria Kleis, Phedon Nicolaides

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 5 (2006), Issue 3, Page 4

I. Introduction Member States finance public universities or research establishments and hospitals. Since public measures only constitute State aid when the recipient is classified as an undertaking, the question whether the above-mentioned establishments are covered by the concept of an undertaking is crucial for the application of Article 87(1) EC. At a first glance, the answer to this question seems to be simple. One just has to apply the definitio