Brussels, 09/05/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 8 May, the European Commission published a report on state aid modernisation (SAM), the main elements of which will be in place by the end of 2013. In the broader context of the EU's agenda to foster growth, state aid policy should focus on facilitating well-designed aid targeted at market failures and objectives of common European interest.
The report provides information about the strategy and identifies three main and closely linked objectives:
(1) State aid control must support sustainable growth and contribute to improving the quality of public spending by discouraging aid that does not bring real added-value and distorts competition. For this purpose, experience developed in the context of state aid control could be embedded in the EU semester recommendations to member states. Aid must support flagship initiatives of the EUROPE 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in a pro-competitive way, maintaining a level playing field in the internal market. To this end, the Commission will develop common principles for the compatibility assessment of national support projects, and revise and streamline some existing texts, such as the Environmental, Regional or Risk Capital Guidelines as well as the Guidelines for the Rescue & Restructuring of firms.
(2) State aid enforcement must focus more on cases with the biggest impact on the internal market. This will include stronger scrutiny of large and potentially distortive aid as well as enquiries by sector, across member states. At the same time the analysis of cases with limited effect on trade can be simplified by reviewing the regime of exemptions, in particular the General Block Exemption Regulation adopted in 2008 and, possibly, the Regulation on small amounts of aid adopted in 2006. This can only become possible if member states improve the quality of submissions and comply even more with EU law. To this end, the Commission will be introducing tighter controls ahead of application to ensure compliance.
(3) Procedures must be streamlined to deliver decisions within business-relevant timelines. Also, rules and concepts shall be better explained, including a clarification of the notion of state aid and a modernisation of the Procedural Regulation. (FG/transl.fl)