Wolfgang Weiß

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 23 (2024), Issue 2, Page 101 - 114

Sport has been a recurring topic for the CJEU in its application of EU law since the 1970s, but until recently it was hardly relevant to the area of State aid. This has changed significantly since 2019, when the GC annulled Commission decisions on State aid in the professional football sector, followed by two CJEU rulings in 2021 and 2022. The article will show that the judicial application of State aid law in these cases was not unique (especially as sport-specific claims by football clubs were considered irrelevant), that the cases provided insights of general importance for State aid law (eg regarding the standard of proof) and that Article 165 TFEU does not provide a specific exception. Keywords: State aid and sport; Spanish football cases; notion of aid; selectivity; standard of proof

Wolfgang Weiß

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 21 (2022), Issue 2, Page 132 - 142

In May 2021 the European Commission tabled a draft Third Country Subsidies Regulation which stands between trade and competition policy. This new instrument establishes a review of third country subsidies with a view to addressing the competition distortion resulting from foreign subsidies granted to undertakings economically active in the EU internal market. As the new tool complements EU State aid scrutiny with a view to foreign subsidies, the present contribution compares the general procedures and provisions of the new regulation with EU State aid law. It will be shown that despite many similarities with State aid law, considerable differences remain which can be explained by looking at the different procedural and substantive context. Keywords: third country subsidies; ex officio review; Commission discretion; procedural powers; rights of defence

Wolfgang Weiß, Eva Rom

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 21 (2022), Issue 4, Page 368 - 383

The Union legislator has recently amended the Aarhus Regulation with the aim of bringing it more in line with the requirements the Aarhus Convention lays down. EU State aid decisions, however, remain excluded from its scope. This exclusion raises questions that form the object of this contribution. The article argues that the arguments presented to justify the continued exclusion of State aid review are not convincing. By not complying with the recommendations of the ACCC, the EU is in clear violation of international law. Therefore, the article deliberates over the necessary changes and possible exemptions for a sound implementation of the Aarhus Convention against the procedural specificities of State aid review, considering also the Commission´s recently presented options, which contain a number of problematic aspects. Keywords: Aarhus Regulation; Aarhus Convention; Hinkley Point C; internal review; ACCC

Wolfgang Weiß, Markus Haberkamm

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 9 (2010), Issue 2, Page 9

I. Introduction A French legend tells that even the devil did not succeed in learning the pretty difficult Basque language after seven years.1 The length of a preliminary review procedure seems to proof the fact that the Basque tax system is not that much easier… The CFI dealt with several Basque tax cases during the last years.2 This case annotation concerns two recent judgments3 and focuses on procedural problems, in particular on questions like the