On Wednesday 6 July, the European Commission proposed an EU Council Regulation allowing the Commission to exempt from prior notification under EU State aid rules certain types of aid for rail, inland waterway and multimodal transport, with the aim of promoting green modes of transport.
The guidelines for the rail sector do not reflect important regulatory and market developments (opening to competition of the rail markets and the EU policy priorities in the context of the ‘European Green Deal’).
The new EU Council Regulation (https://aeur.eu/f/2i2 ) will allow the Commission to declare certain categories of state aid for greener transport modes compatible with the internal market. This concerns in particular certain types of aid for rail, inland waterway and multimodal transport, especially aid for transport coordination, which is unlikely to distort competition.
Following the adoption of the proposal, the Commission will adopt a Block Exemption Regulation relieving Member States from the obligation to notify the Commission in advance of aid measures falling within these categories.
This will enable the transport sector to embrace the green and digital transition in line with the EU’s strategic objectives. The proposed regulation will now be discussed by the EU Council.
"We welcome this proposal. We have been calling for years for legal exemptions to state aid to support clean transport. This text should be the starting point for a broader and more ambitious review of the current regimes, including the rail and air transport guidelines," said Karima Delli, chair of the EP's Transport Committee, and Claude Gruffat, member of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee and a specialist on competition issues. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)