María Muñoz de Juan

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 17 (2018), Issue 4, Page 483 - 493

Ex post monitoring is a counterpart of the State aid decentralisation process and, as such, is a cornerstone of the current State aid control system. The application of State aid rules is being increasingly decentralised thanks to the significant use of the block exemption Regulations by the Member States. However, this does not mean that the Commission is giving up its powers and obligations under the Treaty. On the contrary, it closely follows — through ex post controls — how State aid measures are implemented by the Member States. This Commission-level monitoring exercise aims to correct the detected irregularities both for the past and for the future and helps to improve State aid rules. It has a measurable deterrent effect. Keywords: State aid; enforcement; monitoring; ex post control; SAM; decentralisation; block exemption regulation.

María Muñoz de Juan

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 15 (2016), Issue 1, Page 103 - 114

On 2 July 2015, the General Court decided, for the second time, whether the French State’s support declarations and the shareholder loan offered to France Télécom constitute State aid. For the second time, the General Court annulled the Commission decision concluding so. The saga is a landmark case-law since it provides relevant clarifications on the notion of aid and the way the prudent market economy principle should be applied to successive public measures. However, the game is not over yet because the Commission has again lodged an appeal before the Court of Justice. Keywords: Notion of aid; State Resources; Advantage; Procedures before the Commission; Procedures before the European Courts.

Fiorenzo Bovenzi, Christian Lund, María Muñoz de Juan

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 15 (2016), Issue 2, Page 291 - 298

In recent years, the EFTA Surveillance Authority has examined several power sale contracts concluded by the Icelandic state-owned electricity company Landsvirkjun with industrial customers, in order to exclude the presence of State aid. This article reviews the recent decisional practice of the Authority, with a focus on the application of the market-economy operator test, which aims at establishing that the contracts made commercial sense and properly reflected market conditions, thus excluding the existence of an advantage. The Authority’s assessment has taken into account the specific features of the Icelandic electricity market, such as its lack of interconnections, and the fact that there are no readily available benchmarks against which Landsvirkjun’s contracts can be compared. Keywords: European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement, Notion of aid, State Resources, Advantage, Market-Economy Operator (MEO) Test.

María Muñoz de Juan, Mihalis Kekelekis

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 14 (2015), Issue 2, Page 280 - 283

This judgment provides relevant clarifications on the effects of the extension of the duration of an existing aid measure. The General Court concludes that the mere extension of the duration of an existing aid measure does not render the measure new aid. Still it has to be verified if such an extension modifies the conditions and terms of the original existing aid measure. In addition, in the context of the present judgement, the Annotation sheds some light and discusses the legal implications, if any, of the separate appeal case brought before the Court of Justice (Court) by the European Commission against Greece for failing to fulfil its obligations. Keywords: Electricity, Existing aid, Failure to fulfil obligations, New aid, Recovery order