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Blauberger, Michael --- "State Aid Control from a Political Science Perspective" [2011] ELECD 698; in Szyszczak, Erika (ed), "Research Handbook on European State Aid Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Research Handbook on European State Aid Law

Editor(s): Szyszczak, Erika

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849802741

Section: Chapter 2

Section Title: State Aid Control from a Political Science Perspective

Author(s): Blauberger, Michael

Number of pages: 16

Extract:

2 State aid control from a political science
perspective
Michael Blauberger


This chapter provides an overview of the political science literature on the
development of European Union (EU) State aid control and on its impact
at the domestic level. First, while Treaty provisions on State aid have
remained largely unchanged since the original Treaties of Rome of 1957,
it took several decades for the Commission to realise true enforcement
powers. The Commission's incremental soft law approach, supportive
Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) jurisprudence, as well as
private complainants, are considered in the literature as major factors that
helped to overcome initial Member State resistance to State aid control.
Partly under-researched, however, are the internal dynamics of the
Commission shaping its particular mix of competition, regional, industrial
policies which underlie European State aid rules. Second, the effectiveness
of EU State aid control in restricting and/or redirecting Member State
subsidies is discussed controversially in the political science and political
economy literature. Several authors argue that EU State aid control is
not only constraining Member States' ability to distort competition in the
internal market, but it increasingly influences the targets of national State
aid policies. Some, however, partly dispute these trends or they propose
alternative explanations that focus less on European influences.


I. INTRODUCTION

European State aid rule- and decision-making has always been politically
sensitive.1 In contrast to antitrust or mergers, the Commission's practice
in the field of State aid control primarily targets Member ...