State Aid Law of the European Union

Rules controlling State aid and subsidies on the EU and the WTO level can have a decisive influence on both regulatory and distributive decision-making. This field of law has grown exponentially in importance and complexity over the past decades. Rules on State aid and subsidies control are one of the key instruments to ensure that public spending and regulatory measures do not lead to discriminatory distortions of competition. As a consequence, hardly any part of national law is free from review under criteria of State aid and subsidy regulation. In turn, State aid and subsidies law is linked to economic, constitutional, administrative law of the EU and the Member States as well as to public international law. This book provides expert opinion and commentary on the diverse dimensions of this complex and vital area of law. Critically analysing and explaining developments and current approaches in State aid law and subsidies, the chapters take into account not only the legal dimensions but also the economic and political implications. They address the EU law applicable to State aid in the aftermath of the recent State Modernisation reform, and coverage includes: an in-depth analysis of the notion of State aid as interpreted by the Court's cases-law and the Commission's practice; the rules on compatibility of State aid with the internal market; the rules governing the procedure before the Commission; the litigation before the Court of Justice of the European Union; and analysis of the other trade defence instruments, including WTO subsidy law and EU anti-subsidy law.

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 865-884
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Weiß ◽  
Cornelia Furculita

Abstract Considering the new focus of the European Union (EU) trade policy on strengthening the enforcement of trade rules, the article presents the proposed amendments to the EU Trade Enforcement Regulation 654/2014. It analyzes the EU Commission proposal and the amendments suggested by the European Parliament Committee on International Trade (INTA), in particular with regard to uncooperative third parties and the provision of immediate countermeasures. The amendments will be assessed in view of their legality under World Trade Organization (WTO), Free Trade Agreement (FTA), and general international law and in view of their political implications for the EU’s multilateralist stance. Finally, the opportunity to amend Regulation 654/2014 to use it for the enforcement of FTA trade and sustainable development chapters will be explored. The analysis shows that the shift towards more effective enforcement should be pursued with due care for respecting existing international legal commitments and with more caution to multilateralism.


10.17345/1286 ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Pérez Rodríguez

After regulating Greenhouse Gas emissions from air transport, the European Union is now contemplating taking action on emissions from the shipping sector. In order to do so, the European Commission carried out a public consultation process between January and April 2012. This article analyses the legal problems that would arise, in the light of Public International Law, should the European Union decide to follow the path of aviation and include shipping under the European Emission Trading Scheme (ETS). To do so, the focus will be placed on six different normative bodies of international law: (1) the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol;(2) the MARPOL Convention; (3) the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea; (4) the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the General Agreement on Trade of Services; (5) the principle of sovereignty over maritime areas; and (6) the bilateral agreements ratified by the EU containing clauses on maritime transport. The structure of each of the six normative bodies will be as follows: international commitments under each international norm, possibility of enforcement before tribunals and analysis of the legality of the EU measure in relation to that norm.


2021 ◽  
pp. 21-38
Author(s):  
Danuta Kabat-Rudnicka ◽  
Brygida Kuźniak

The article focuses on the concept of sovereignty – an analytical category applicable to states. However, with the emergence of new actors in the international arena, especially new types of organisations such as the European Union, the question arises: whether it is possible to apply sovereignty to entities other than states. The authors have the assumption that in the area of social sciences, it is possible to give the concept of the sovereignty a certain trait of universality, inter alia, to better reconcile the legal and political science approaches. The aim of this study is to identify and then to define an important feature of the EU, which may be sovereignty itself or its equivalent (autonomy, claim to sovereignty, quasi-sovereignty). The results of the study may lead to a better understanding of non-state subjects of public international law such as international organisations in genere, and organisations of integrational and supranational character in specie. The article is analytical, comparative and explanatory.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Pérez Rodríguez

After regulating Greenhouse Gas emissions from air transport, the European Union is now contemplating taking action on emissions from the shipping sector. In order to do so, the European Commission carried out a public consultation process between January and April 2012. This article analyses the legal problems that would arise, in the light of Public International Law, should the European Union decide to follow the path of aviation and include shipping under the European Emission Trading Scheme (ETS). To do so, the focus will be placed on six different normative bodies of international law: (1) the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol;(2) the MARPOL Convention; (3) the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea; (4) the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the General Agreement on Trade of Services; (5) the principle of sovereignty over maritime areas; and (6) the bilateral agreements ratified by the EU containing clauses on maritime transport. The structure of each of the six normative bodies will be as follows: international commitments under each international norm, possibility of enforcement before tribunals and analysis of the legality of the EU measure in relation to that norm.


Author(s):  
Luca Prete

The enforcement of EU law on non-compliant national authorities has, at its heart, infringement proceedings brought pursuant to Articles 258 to 260 TFEU. That focus is embedded in the scheme of the EU Treaties. In that regard, infringement proceedings are a particular feature of the EU legal order. As the Court of Justice stated in one of its first cases, ‘it is a procedure far exceeding the rules heretofore recognized in classical international law, to ensure that obligations of States are fulfilled’. Indeed, under the rules of public international law, there is no obligation to settle disputes or to establish formal and legal procedures for dispute resolution, which, where they exist, always depend on the consent of the parties concerned. By contrast, the jurisdiction of the Court in cases of EU law infringements by Member States is compulsory and constitutes a corollary to membership in the European Union.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jed Odermatt

The European Union plays a significant role in international affairs. International Law and the European Union examines the impact this has had on public international law by integrating perspectives from both EU law and international law. Its analysis focuses on fields of public international law where the EU has had an influence, including customary international law, the law of treaties, international organizations, international dispute settlement, and international responsibility. International Law and the European Union shows how the EU has had a subtle but significant impact on the development of international law and how the international legal order has developed and adjusted to accommodate the EU as a distinct legal actor. In doing so, it contributes to our understanding of how international law addresses legal subjects other than States.


2020 ◽  
pp. 92-97
Author(s):  
A. V. Kuznetsov

The article examines the norms of international law and the legislation of the EU countries. The list of main provisions of constitutional and legal restrictions in the European Union countries is presented. The application of the norms is described Human rights conventions. The principle of implementing legal acts in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic is considered. A comparative analysis of legal restrictive measures in the States of the European Union is carried out.


Author(s):  
Pavlos Eleftheriadis

This book offers a legal and political theory of the European Union. Many political and legal philosophers compare the EU to a federal union. They believe that its basic laws should be subject to the standards of constitutional law. They thus find it lacking or incomplete. This book offers a rival theory. If one looks more closely at the treaties and the precedents of the European courts, one sees that the substance of EU law is international, not constitutional. Just like international law, it applies primarily to the relations between states. It binds domestic institutions directly only when the local constitutions allow it. The member states have democratically chosen to adapt their constitutional arrangements in order to share legislative and executive powers with their partners. The legal architecture of the European Union is thus best understood under a theory of dualism and not pluralism. According to this internationalist view, EU law is part of the law of nations and its distinction from domestic law is a matter of substance, not form. This arrangement is supported by a cosmopolitan theory of international justice, which we may call progressive internationalism. The EU is a union of democratic peoples, that freely organize their interdependence on the basis of principles of equality and reciprocity. Its central principles are not the principles of a constitution, but cosmopolitan principles of accountability, liberty, and fairness,


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (14) ◽  
pp. 145-157
Author(s):  
Virág Blazsek

The bank bailouts following the global financial crisis of 2008 have been subject to prior approval of the European Commission (EC), the competition authority of the European Union. The EC was reluctant to reject rescue efforts directed at failing banks and so it consistently approved all such requests submitted by Member States. Out of the top twenty European banks, the EC authorized State aid to at least twelve entities. In this context, the paper outlines the gradually changing interpretation of EU State aid rules, the “temporary and extraordinary rules” introduced starting from late 2008, and the extension of the “no-State aid” category. The above shifts show that the EC itself deflected from relevant EU laws in order to systemically rescue important banks in Europe and restore their financial stability. The paper argues that bank bailouts and bank rescue packages by the State have led to different effects on market structures and consumer welfare in the Eurozone and non-Eurozone areas, mostly the Eastern segments of the European Union. As such, it is argued that they are inconsistent with the European common market. Although the EC tried to minimize the distortion of competition created as a result of the aforementioned case law primarily through the application of the principle of exceptionality and different compensation measures, these efforts have been at least partially unsuccessful. Massive State aid packages, the preferential treatment of the largest, or systemically important, banks through EU State aid mechanisms – almost none of which are Central and Eastern European (CEE) – may have led to the distortion of competition on the common market. That is so mainly because of the prioritization of the stability of the financial sector and the Euro. The paper argues that State aid for failing banks may have had important positive effects in the short run, such as the promotion of the stability of the banking system and the Euro. In the longrun however, it has contributed to the unprecedented sovereign indebtedness in Europe, and contributed to an increased economic and political instability of the EU, particularly in its most vulnerable CEE segment.


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