Brussels, 21/12/2012 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission's 2012 State Aid Scoreboard, published on Friday 21 December, reveals that the volume of national support to the financial sector actually taken by banks between October 2008 and 31 December 2011 amounted to around €1.6 trillion (13 % of EU GDP). The bulk (67%) came in the form of state guarantees on banks' wholesale funding. Support to the real economy on the basis of temporary crisis rules dropped to €4.8 billion in 2011, a fall of more than 50% compared with 2010, reflecting both a low uptake by companies and the budgetary constraints of most EU member states.
The scoreboard shows that total non-crisis aid decreased and stood at €64.3 billion in 2011 or 0.5% of EU GDP and continued to re-focus on less distortive horizontal objectives such as aid for research and innovation, protection of the environment and providing risk capital to SMEs. The scoreboard also shows member states recovering illegal aid much faster, with 85% (around €13.5 billion) clawed back at the end of June 2012 thanks to the Commission's action, probably facilitated by the pressure to consolidate public finances. (OL/transl.fl)