New Compilation of State Aid Rules December 2009

A great resource for public authorities (state, regional and local entities), businesses and advisors in the EU member states: The European Commission publishes a compilation of the state aid rules in force. The latest issue is of 1 December 2009, and it is currently available in English, French and German. Other language versions have been promised.



The compilation, officially EU Competition Law ─ Rules Applicable to State Aid ─ Situation as at 1 December 2009, contains the legislation applicable to manufacturing industry and services. It does not contain the specific rules applicable to agriculture, fisheries, transport and coal.


The compilation is a huge pdf file, at least for humans: 14.8 MB and 732 pages. The electronic publication offers links to the Official Journal of the European Union, which makes it easy for lawyers to access the language version they need.



Alternatively, each of the ten sections can be downloaded separately from the web page Compilation of state aid rules in force.

In addition to the Table of contents, the sections are:


A. Treaty provisions on State aid
B. General Procedural Rules
C. Enabling Regulation and General Block Exemption Regulation
D. Temporary rules established in response to the economic and financial crisis
E. Horizontal rules
F. Sector-specific rules
G. Specific aid instruments
H. Reference/discount rates and recovery interest rates
I. Transparency of Financial Relations between Member States and Public Undertakings
J. Services of General Economic Interest (SGEI)


The web page also lists the latest updates to the compilation of state aid rules.


Competition policy overview



In addition to the State Aid Scoreboard December 2009, presented in the blog post EU State Aid Scoreboard December 2009, one possibility to get on overview of fairly recent developments in competition policy, including state aid, is offered by the Commission’s Report on Competition Policy 2008, Brussels, 23.7.2009 COM(2009) 374 final (31 pages), and the accompanying Staff working document SEC(2009) 10004.




Ralf Grahn



P.S. Growing, multilingual Bloggingportal.eu now aggregates 494 euroblogs. Blogging associations, networks, businesses, politicians, activists and interested citizens meet at our “village well” Bloggingportal.eu for facts, opinions and gossip on EU affairs and European themes.