Anna Nowak-Salles

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 20 (2021), Issue 3, Page 359 - 369

This article, based on a thesis defended at the European University Institute in October 2020, pursues a twofold aim: first, to apply the error framework, which is an economic analysis tool used in competition law, to State aid, and to discover what determines the expected cost of error in this area. Second, to reflect on whether this expected cost might be reduced and to provide ideas where improvements might be sought. For this purpose, it verifies whether errors in State aid assessment at the Commission and the national level are rare, cheap and effectively corrected. On the basis of this analysis, which constitutes an original assessment of the reform of Procedural Regulation and of the GBER, it draws useful conclusions and formulates some recommendations as to how to increase accuracy at a reasonable cost. Keywords: State aid procedure; error in assessment; notification procedure; GBER.

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 20 (2021), Issue 2, Page 298 - 299

Marco Schito

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 20 (2021), Issue 2, Page 200 - 216

Scholars have long wondered whether, following the increasing degree of institutionalisation of State aid control, State aid policies are converging towards a common European model. The issue of convergence has come to the forefront in particular following the Eastern enlargement, which welcomed several countries with a very different historical legacy. The present article thus looks at the differences in State aid allocations between old and new Member States to understand whether, in the over fifteen years since the enlargement, such differences have been overcome. By means of statistical analysis, it argues that differences in aid levels between the two blocs persist both in terms of overall allocations and in expenditures by objectives. Drawing from the literature on comparative political economy, it further explores a potential explanation as to why intra-bloc differences among Central Eastern European countries also continue to this day. Keywords: Central Eastern European Countries; CEEC; comparative capitalism; statistical analysis; State aid politics.

Steven Verschuur, Cecilia Sbrolli

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 20 (2021), Issue 1, Page 41 - 50

The European Green Deal is the prelude and the foundation of a daunting, but necessary, environmental-centric industrial revolution. EU legislation has obviously dealt with environmental policies in the past, but the European Green Deal is a far-reaching project that will require unprecedented investments. The transition envisioned in the European Green Deal will also require amendments to a wide variety of existing EU legislation and policies, including in the field of State aid. The guidelines on regional State aid (2014 Regional Guidelines), in force until the end of 2021, constitute the legal framework in force to assess Regional State aid. The European Commission has already published draft Guidelines to replace the 2014 Guidelines (Draft Regional Guidelines) to bring the text in line with the European Green Deal. This paper is the second of a series that will discuss the interplay between existing State aid rules and policy on the one hand and the European Green Deal on the other. The first article provided an introduction to the European Green Deal and its interaction with the guidelines for State aid for environmental protection and energy (EEAG). This second article will focus on the Just Transition Mechanism (JTM) and its interplay with the Draft Regional Guidelines. Keywords: European Green Deal; regional State aid; Just Transition; outermost territories; financing the transition

Wout De Cock

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 20 (2021), Issue 1, Page 180 - 183

Juan Jorge Piernas López

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 20 (2021), Issue 2, Page 313 - 314

Federico Fichera

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 20 (2021), Issue 4, Page 479 - 491

Digital companies, on which contemporary economies are largely based, rely heavily on intangible assets and data processing. They are also able to carry out their activity without a physical presence in the market, which creates a separation between the country where these companies make their profits and the country in which those profits are taxed. It has thus become important to develop an efficient strategy to tax these operators. In 2018, the European Union made an attempt to do so and the Commission introduced a proposal for a directive on the introduction of a Digital Service Tax (DST). Due to lack of the required unanimity in Council, such a proposal was not adopted. In the meantime, however, some Member States have introduced their own national DSTs, clearly inspired by the Commission's proposal. This paper investigates whether such fiscal measures constitute State aid and, in light of recent case-law, it concludes that this is probably not the case. However, in consideration of the peculiarities of such taxes, it is argued that they might still be found to trigger Article 107(1) TFEU in accordance with said jurisprudence. From a broader perspective, it is also argued that the approach used by the CJEU when ruling on fiscal aid should be less formalistic and should give more consideration to the potential effect that these could have on competition within the Internal Market. Keywords: Digital Service Tax; digital taxation; Fiscal State aid; GAFA; selectivity.

Andreas Bartosch

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 20 (2021), Issue 4, Page 507 - 511

A recent line of jurisprudence as to the dichotomy of what is an economic versus a non –economic activity has, bizarrely so, gone completely unnoticed by commentators. This article seizes the opportunity to present the author´s view why, whilst formally repeating an all-too-well-known line of jurisprudence, the way the Courts have carried out their analysis in fact brings quite some degree of common sense when looking at this very analysis. Keywords: jurisprudence; economic advantage; State aid conditions; State control

Marijana Liszt

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 20 (2021), Issue 4, Page 586 - 589

Floris Fonteyn, Wout De Cock

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 20 (2021), Issue 4, Page 585 - 586