Country Profile: Belgium

• Author: Naldini, Andrea; Pompili, Marco; Peruccacci, Eleonora
• Pages: 94-105

94

2. COUNTRY PROFI LE: BELGI UM

Introduction

To gain an understanding of the context of State aidand the evaluation of State aid

schemes in Belgium, itis useful to outline the country’s basic institutional setup.

Belgium became a full federation in 1993 following a long process of decentralisation.

A series o f const itu tio nal ref orm s over th e course o f t he l ast decad es fully implemented

the federalisation and shifted political competences from the national level to the

various regional and community authorities. This was accompanied by continuous

changes in the inst itu tion al setu p of th e cou ntr y at all levels of gov ernance.

Currently, Belgium comprises a national/federal level, three regions (Walloon Region,

Flanders Region, and the r egion of Brussels-Capital), three commu nities (Francoph one

Community, Flemish community, and the German-speaking Comm unity). The regions

hold executive and legislative competences in economic affairs within their territory.

This in cludes emp loym ent , economic development , housing , agriculture, transpor t and

even international trade and, partially, development cooperation. The three

communities havecompetences in areas such as culture, tourism, education, health

and social affairs.

From this, it results that these differentfederated entities are also responsible for

managing State aidwithin their area of competence. Therefore, the handling of the

various State aidschemes, as regards both their design and implementation, is split

bet we en a r elat ive ly high n umb er of aut hor it ies w it h l im ite d co ord inat ion at t he nat ion al

level. The same holds true for the evaluation ofSt ate aid, which is not centralised and

relies with t he grant ing au thorities.

On average, Belgium provides less State aidin comparison to the other EU Member

States. In 2017, BelgianState aidmeasures amounted to 0.53 percent of GDP, below

the 0.7 6 percent of th e EU28 m ean . I nd ivid ualState aidsch eme s in Bel gium t end to be

of limited size. This is due the medium size of the count ry (as compared to the larger

Mem ber St ates) and the division of public resources b etw een mu ltiple au thoritie s, each

with th eir own budget s an d limited geographic coverage7576.

Belgium has not put in place any general obligation to implement EU State aid

legislation. Neither at the federal, regional or com munit y level. European legislation is

di rect ly ap pli cabl e. Belg ian St ate aid schem es r efe r t o t he regu lat ions at EU le vel, w her e

necessary. There is also no complementary domestic legislation to further regulate

State aid77.

In Belgiumit is rather complex to create overviews of granted State aidat an

aggregat ed level. At the federal level, t hey have very limited authorities, actually only

regardin g tax rules. Thus, the th ree regional levels have t he strongest pow er on State

aidschemes’ management– Brussels, Walloon and Flanders. For instance,in the

cur ren t COVI D-19 crisis situat ion, Belgian au tho rit ies h ave to appl y f or State aidgr ants

through four separate applications (for federal, Brussel, Flanders, Walloon). These

applications are then combined into one coherent application for Belgium asa whole,

wh ich has to com ply with EU State aidrules.

75https://ec.europa.eu/competition/state_aid/scoreboard/index_en.html

76https://gettingthedealthrough.com/area/67/jurisdiction/31/state-aid-be lgi um /

77Ibidem.