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.
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