The Economic Approach to European State Aid Control: A Politico-Economic Analysis

Since the mid-2000s, the European Commission has employed a so-called ‘more economic approach’ to European state aid control. Under this modified regime, the Commission checks not only whether a state aid has competition-distorting effects, but in addition, whether it enhances social welfare. This reform implies an extension of the Commission’s competences vis-à-vis the Member States as the Commission gets the power to prohibit national state aid regarded as socially wasteful. The Commission explains its reform with the necessity of giving state aid control a sound economic basis. This article, however, demonstrates that the more economic approach – somewhat paradoxically – is not based on a consistent economic view of public policy that would justify the aforementioned shift of competences to the supranational EU level. The economic-theoretical inconsistencies identified in this article may be used by policymakers to rethink some elements of current EU state aid policy.     

European Competition vs. Global Competitiveness Transferring EU Rules on State Aid and Public Procurement Beyond Europe

As long as state aid outside the EU is unregulated, the European Commission faces a dilemma: either European firms will be disadvantaged in global competition by strict EU rules, or the Commission will come under pressure to relax the rules, thereby running the risk that fair competition within the EU will be undermined. As a consequence, the Commission attempts to promote EU rules on state aid and public procurement beyond EU borders — in non-member countries as well as at the WTO level. This article analyses the Commission’s channels of regulatory transfer and the factors accounting for its varying success. Bilateral cooperation provides many opportunities to spread European state aid rules, but decentralised enforcement at the national level remains ultimately deficient. Moreover, the transfer of European rules to the multilateral WTO depends heavily on the EU’s ability to reach prior consensus with its most powerful partner and rival, the US government.     

Managing the Dilemma of Discretion: The European Commission and the Development of EU State Aid Policy

This article examines the role played by the European Commission in the development of the European Union’s (EU) state aid policy. It does so through the prism of a “dilemma” that exists at the nexus of the Commission’s delegated authority to administer EU treaty state aid provisions, the discretion conferred on Commission authorities by the imprecise language in which those provisions are written, and the political and institutional control mechanisms EU member governments use to influence the exercise of that discretion. Examining Commission efforts to manage this dilemma over the history of the EU, we provide evidence to illustrate how the Commission’s approach adapted to shifting economic and political conditions.     

State Aid and Export Competitiveness in the EU

Despite the proclaimed return of industrial policy state aid provided by EU Member States is at historically low levels. This fact is at least partly explained by the unique institutional arrangement in the EU which empowers the European Commission to monitor and restrict state aid activities of Member States. Making use of European state aid statistics over the period 1995–2011 we construct a measure for manufacturing state aid and estimate an expanded macro-economic export function to investigate the relationship between state aid for the manufacturing sector and Member States’ export performance. Since national governments can be expected to provide subsidies primarily to foster domestic value added we use value added exports as the export performance measure. Non-stationarity of the data confines us to investigating the short run relationships in which we only find limited evidence for a significant impact of state aid on manufacturing value added exports.     

Winners and Losers in EU State Aid Policy

Who gains and who loses from the European Union’s state aid policy? Using data published by the Competition Directorate from 1992 to 2007, I employ pooled time series analysis to understand the motives behind state aid allocations and then interpret the findings in light of the political relationship between Member States and the Commission. Demand for aid is shaped by national macroeconomic and institutional characteristics. Governments then bargain with the Commission to allocate aid. As a result, the Commission finds itself in a delicate balancing act as controller of state aids and as an institution subject to the political power of member government.     

Economic Patriotism, the Clash of Capitalisms, and State Aid in the European Union

This article analyses the political economy of state aid in the European Union (EU) using the concepts of economic patriotism and models of capitalism. State aid is analysed as a form of economic patriotism, which is conceived here as economic interventions which seek, by a number of means, to advance the perceived economic self-interest of particular groups and actors (firms, workforces, or sectors) defined according to their territorial status. The article argues that the paradox of neo-liberal democracy generated by liberal international markets, overlapping economic governance regimes (such as the EU and the World Trade Organisation), and nationally delimited political mandates presents new problems for policy-makers attempting economic interventions like state aid. Forms of economic patriotism are partly shaped by national institutional and social configurations and state traditions. Within EU economic governance, this generates a ‘clash of capitalisms’ whereby liberal EU anti-trust and competition policy norms proscribe certain state aid and industrial policy measures favoured by some European states. As traditional industrial policy becomes decreasingly viable, new modes of economic patriotic interventionism are enacted within contemporary processes of market-making, and the re-regulatory activity framing European markets. The paper focuses on French state aid responses to the global economic crisis, noting how the retreat of neo-liberal ebullience within the EU provides a conducive environment for resurgent French dirigiste approaches to state aid, indicating that the politics of economic patriotism and state aid will continue to be important features of the European political economic landscape in the years ahead.     

The Dilemma of Enlargement for the European Union's Regional Policy

The integration of the former communist countries of central and eastern Europe into the European Union creates a dilemma for the EU's regional policy. The EU's expenditure on regional policy (its ‘active’ regional policy) has been guided by political reactions to deepening or enlarging the EU, not by a rational strategy for regional policy. In contrast, the strong EU instrument of state aid control, developed for competition policy (its ‘reactive’ regional policy) has been relatively successful in avoiding a national race of regional subsidies among the member states. We show that a shift from active regional policy to reactive, competition‐oriented, regional policies is the preferred way for the established member states to handle the challenge of enlargement. At the same time, however, this shift is politically difficult for the accession countries to accept, despite the fact that this shift might prove better for them economically. This regional policy dilemma is one of the major obstacles for the full integration of the accession countries into the EU.     

Künftige Finanzplanung der EU — neue Prioritäten,höhere Effizienz?

On May 2, 2018, the European Commission proposed a limited and realistic increase for the EU’s next multi-annual financial framework 2021–2027. The draft implies a roughly constant common budget for the EU with a focus on European stabilisation policy and the provision of centralised public goods provision rather than agriculture and cohesion. This shift mirrors the priorities spelled out by Emanuel Macron. However, the Commission combined this pragmatism with its interest in improving budgetary flexibility and autonomy. There is no doubt that the EU27 faces difficult negotiations. EU Member States’ initial reactions to the European Commision’s recent proposals were dominated by juste retour considerations reminiscent of past negotiations. Strengthening EU expenditure through European added value and fundamentally reforming their own resource system, including the introduction of tax-based own resources, will end the deadlock surrounding net position thinking. A more fundamental view on the fiscal policy of the European Union is given in the last paper, which states that the EU requires a complete overhaul of the economic governance structure. It offers a tentative approach that avoids moral hazard problems as well as fallacies about conditional backstops during times of crisis.     

State Aid Policy, Territoriality and Federalism: EU Scrutiny and Control of Regional Aid and the Supranationalisation of Subnational Autonomy in Federal Member States

Whilst its impact on national industrial policy has attracted considerable attention in the scholarly literature, the implications of EU state aid policy on regional development policy and its effects on territorial relations inside EU member states have been largely neglected. Drawing on the experience of Bavaria, Flanders and Upper Austria, this article shows how EU action has imposed increasingly wide reaching and detailed constraints on subnational authorities, undermining and eroding their capacity to define and implement regional policy. It thereby also challenges the widely held presumption in the EU literature, as for example by proponents of multi-level governance, that European integration works invariably to empower and strengthen regions in Europe. To the contrary, the case studies show that the autonomy of subnational states in EU member countries with federal systems has been eroded as they have been forced to abandon traditional policies and practices. More generally, the article invites reconsideration of the relationship between European integration and subnational authorities.     

Comprehensive Trade Agreements: Conditioning Globalisation or Eroding the European Model?

Trade dynamics within the EU are presently pushing it towards deepening globalisation through bilateral comprehensive trade agreements which establish far-reaching rules that govern the bilateral trade relationship. The European Commission has defended these agreements as a vehicle through which to promote world trade in accordance with European values and norms. However, the theory of fiscal federalism and the principle of subsidiarity tell us that one should not centralise decisions at the supranational level which are better taken at the national or regional level when there are different preferences among countries or regions. Consequently, member state and regional competences ought not to be perceived as a mere obstacle to swift trade deals. Rather, they can provide an important checks and balances function with regard to whether EU trade policy is truly working to condition globalisation according to European values and preferences.     

Ein Arbeitsmarktprogramm für Europa

The European Employment Strategy is the subject of controversial discussion. It is hard to find an economic justification for transnational responsibility since European labour markets are heterogenous and spillover effects of national employment policies are almost negligible. In its latest communication, the European Commission fails to provide a masterplan for a recovery of the struggling labour markets, although it provides convincing and less convincing proposals for tackling unemployment in EU member states. There is a suspicion that the package mainly serves as a first step towards transferring employment policy responsibilities from the national to the EU level. But the EU labour market policy lacks appropriate instruments and competences. Finally, it is questionable whether the package fits in an economic growth plan.     

The Constitutional Structures of the National Political Economy: Barrier to or Precondition for European Integration?

The Court of Justice of the European Union is increasingly dedicated to the pursuit of economic efficiency. As this article will demonstrate, this has led to diagonal conflict between European legal pronouncements on the free movement of labour within a services regime and national jurisprudence on democratically-legitimated public procurement policies within distinct state aids regimes. Where once the CJEU treated public procurement as a distinctive part of the EU’s state aids regime, or one which might be reconciled with redistributive ethical and social concerns maintained at national level, the application of the EU services regime to procurement has placed this traditional understanding in doubt. This re-alignment, however, as well as the supranational-national conflict that it has created, reflects both the deeper mismatch both between European economic and national social competences, as well as friction between national and European conceptions of constitutional legitimacy. Such tensions must be overcome in order to secure continuing legal integration within Europe.     

Policy implications

Abstract: In the European Union, the framework of financial services legislation at EU level has been aimed primarily at forming a single market for banks, insurers and other financial services firms. Substantial progress has been made towards this objective. Also, the EU initiatives have stimulated a reappraisal of national regulatory systems. Most of this EU legislation (with the exception of the consumer credit directives) has not had consumer protection as one of its main aims, although it has been assumed that consumers will eventually benefit from a wide choice of financial services providers and from price competition. However, partly in response to consumer pressure, the European Commission is developing a set of initiatives more closely geared to protecting consumers’ interests. Within the context of the EU’s approach, there remain considerable variations in the approach to protecting consumers’ interests in different member states as a result of legal and cultural differences.     

State aid control in the European Union— Rationale, stylised facts and determining factors

The EC Treaty substantially reduces the freedom of EU Member States to provide direct economic assistance to enterprises. The main rationale for controlling the use of national state aid at the European level are the potentially negative repercussions of national subsidies on EU market integration. Expressed in per cent of GDP, overall state aid has indeed declined over the last 15 years and state aid to manufacturing, expressed as a percentage of value added, has also fallen. Furthermore, country-specific differences with regard to the use of state aid have been reduced. The econometric analysis conducted in this paper suggests that the increased need for fiscal discipline during most of the 1990s had a considerable impact on the reduction of manufacturing state aid. Were it not for this increased fiscal discipline, state aid to manufacturing might not have remained on a declining trend in the second half of the 1990s. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the ECB. Helpful comments by A. van Riet, M. Bagella, M. Malgarini and G. Piga as well as secretarial assistance from S. Schleicher Baltrusch are gratefully acknowledged.     

Should Variable Cost Aid to Attract Foreign Direct Investment be Banned? A European Perspective

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the European Commission’s approach to state aid to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) in a competition policy framework. The Commission considers variable cost aid (VCA) to be more distortive than start-up or fixed cost aid (FCA). This paper addresses that issue and checks whether allowing FCA while banning VCA is an optimal strategy for a supranational Competition Authority maximizing welfare. The model shows that a domestic government maximizing welfare always prefers VCA to FCA if both the incumbent and the entrant are foreign firms and if granting VCA does not cause the incumbent firm to exit the market. The model shows that banning VCA may lead to sub-optimal equilibria where welfare is not maximized.     

EU State Aid Policy and the Politics of External Trade Relations

European Union (EU) state aid policy has an oft-overlooked but politically-charged external dimension that is most clearly witnessed in the linkage with external trade relations. The article seeks to illuminate the issues and potential problems raised by this state aid-trade linkage. When this linkage is made, the EU engages in an array of complex international interactions through which it may pursue two politically-contentious procedures: countervailing duties or dispute settlement. The article argues that an understanding of the EU’s role in these complex interactions must take into account the Union’s institutional landscape and the competing preferences of different private interests. When deciding to impose countervailing duties against foreign state aids (subsidies), private interests play a significant role in initiating investigations and can use their access to EU institutions to encourage the imposition of such measures. While a variety of factors help to explain why the EU prefers pursuing countervailing duties, the Union also actively uses the World Trade Organization’s formal dispute settlement mechanism. Under this alternative, private interests again play an important role, pursuing varying strategies depending on their preferences. The most important determinant of a firm’s preference to pursue countervailing duties or the dispute settlement mechanism appears to be the extent to which the firm is concerned with restoring competition in their home market or with restoring competition in multiple/global markets.     

Networks to Enforce European Law: The Case of the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network

Central to this paper is the aim to discuss the effectiveness of the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (also known as ??CPC Network??) for consumer protection in cross-border disputes in the European Union (EU). In doing so, this paper deals with the literature about networks established by grouping the Commission and national authorities to enforce European Law. The examples of the European Competition Network and the CPC Network are interesting because they raise questions with regard to the effectiveness and the accountability of emerging network-based law enforcement. The development of the CPC Network may have relevant implications for other areas of EU law and policy, including the question whether network-based governance could be transposed in other fields of EU Law.     

Evolution of pharmaceutical regulations and their consequences in the European Union and the United States

This article examines the nature of the European Union (EU) and United States regulation of the pharmaceutical industry in recent years. A series of Regulations and Directives issued by the European Commission and reinforced by decisions of the European Court of Justice have achieved harmonization of the pharmaceutical industry throughout the EU. In the U.S., as a result of the federal system, harmonization has not been a issue; the focus of regulation has been to achieve a balance between those companies using research and development (R&D) to create innovative products and the generic companies which provide quality medicines at lower costs to the consumer. Notwithstanding this difference in orientation, similar problems have been faced in the EU and the U.S.: patent term extension, pediatric versions, and assurance that new drugs are safe and effective. The similarity of issues and often their solutions should not be surprising since the pharmaceutical industry is truly global. U.S. products are sold throughout the EU and European products are readily available in the U.S. The level of regulation, both in the EU and the U.S. has not stymied the industry, as it remains a global leader in developing new and innovative products utilized throughout the world. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

EU data protection reform: Opportunities and concerns

Last year, the European Commission proposed a comprehensive reform of the EU’s data protection rules. The proposed regulation has been surrounded by fi erce controversy and has been the subject of frenzied lobbying by global corporations, industry groups, research centres and privacy campaigners on both sides of the Atlantic. This Forum applies cool economic reasoning to this heated issue. What are the potential economic benefi ts of EU harmonisation? Will the proposed regulation negatively impact the competitiveness and innovation of European fi rms in the global marketplace? Or could it jeopardise attempts to protect privacy as a fundamental right in civil societies?     

The EU’s new competition policy standards

In a 2008 article in the EU’s Competition Policy Newsletter, Peter Lowe, Director General of the EU Commission’s Directorate Competition, synthesised the experience of his office with regard to the design of competition policy institutions for the 21st century. A year earlier, he had co-authored another article, appearing in the same venue, recapitulating the Commission’s lessons learned from the Energy Sector Inquiry and the need for effective unbundling of energy transmission networks. The reader of both, at first astounded by the apparent gap between policymaking reality and reflections upon it, soon detects a rather pragmatic approach to shaping regulatory agendas. But are there limits to expediency?