Christopher McMahon

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 23 (2024), Issue 1, Page 4 - 14

The State aid rules apply to a wide range of interventions on the internal market that take a variety of different forms. This poses challenges for the case law on the identification of aid within the meaning of Article 107(1) TFEU as it seeks to adapt the standards it applies to different circumstances while avoiding formalism. Criticisms in the academic literature of the application of the prohibition on aid to fiscal measures are frequently premised on the assumption that the rules should apply in a different way to such measures on account of their relationship with the sovereignty of Member States in the field of taxation. The manner in which the law on the application of the State aid rules to fiscal measures remains unsettled. This article examines a substantial doctrinal obstacle to any form of differentiation in the standards used to identify fiscal and non-fiscal measures in the form of two related maxims which recur throughout the case law. The first holds that aid is defined in relation to its effects. The second is that regulatory technique is irrelevant to the classification of a measure as aid. This article will chart the development of these established formulae in the case law and explain their relationship to one another, arguing that they represent a significant, but not absolute impediment to the articulation of distinct standards to identify aid in the form of fiscal measures. Keywords: Effects; Objectives; Selectivity; Fiscal Measures; Taxation; Article 107(1) TFEU; Formalism

Juan Jorge Piernas López

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 21 (2022), Issue 4, Page 458 - 460

Hans Arno Petzold

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 17 (2018), Issue 2, Page 250 - 258

EU State aid law does frequently refer to the term ‘local’: firstly in Article 107(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) when asking whether trade between Member States is affected, in the sense of a cross-border effect of the respective measure, secondly in the General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER) as from 1 July 2014, which exempts certain ‘local’ aids, falling under Article 107(1) TFEU, from prior notification. In this essay the attempt is made, by analysing Commission decisions and the GBER, to come to a definition of the term ‘local’ suitable for use in day-to-day funding practice. Keywords: Effects on Trade; Local Character; Article 107(1) TFEU; GBER.

Adrien Giraud, Sylvain Petit

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 17 (2018), Issue 2, Page 305 - 310

Keywords: ENEA; Article 107(1) TFEU; Purchase obligation ; Energy