Public and targeted consultations on EU state aid rules: grab your pens!

In January 2019, the European Commission announced its intention to extend, for a period of two years, seven sets of State aid rules, which were due to expire in 2020.

In this respect, the European Commission launched public and targeted consultations to assess the relevance, effectiveness and coherence of these sets of rules and to check whether they are still appropriate for the objective pursued.

Consultations currently open concern:

• Regulation on de minimis aid until 19 July 2019 (Link);
• The 2014 Guidelines on State aid to airports and airlines and the provisions of the GBER in this sector until 19 July 2019 (Link);
• The Guidelines on State Aid for Environmental Protection and Energy until 10 July 2019 (Link);
• The regional aid Framework 2014-2020, until 10 July 2019 (Link), and finally,
• The Railways Guidelines and the Communication on Short-Term Export Credit Insurance until July 10, 2019 (Link).

As a public authority, company, or interested party, let your voice be heard and contribute to EU regulation.

The opinion of the sectors concerned is indeed essential in order to enable the Commission to adopt adequate, relevant and realistic rules.

With its strong experience in this field, CMS can assist you in this exercise.

In this context, it is expected that the Commission will carry out internal analyses or appoint external consultants to perform more specific consultations on certain subjects.

The results of these "fitness checks" will be summarised in a Commission staff working document and published on the Commission's website.