Country Profile: Germany

• Author: Naldini, Andrea; Pompili, Marco; Peruccacci, Eleonora
• Pages: 123-130

123

6.COUNTRY PROFI LE: GERM ANY

Introduction

Germany is spending a h igh am ount of State aid, since in 2017 it was 42,313.2 Mio. €

(Bun desm iniste riu m der Fina nzen 20 19, S. 71) . This is 3 8.2 p erce nt of the to tal volum e

ofState aidspent in theEU in the same year. Although the absolute amountis

significant, the intensity ofState aid– as share of the GNP – is not extremely high: it

is 1.31 percent, which is above the EU average (0.76% ), but several other countries

show a higher Stat e-aidintensity113.

German fed eralism is built on the basic rule that respon sibilities ar e not shared am ong

different state levels but separated. Thus, the federal level and the Länder have their

own responsibilities. While regional development policy or educat ion, for instance, lies

wi th th e Län der , it is th e Fed eral le vel th at is r espon sibl e fo r l abou r m ar ket po licie s. Th e

t asks ar e ass ign ed to th e d iff ere nt le vels in t he cons tit ut ion al law . This lead s t o a sp ecif ic

pat tern of respon sibilities.

Simultaneously, and partly because of this separation of responsibilities, a variety of

different ways to coordinate the levels is experienced. Negotiations to coordinate the

Länder are v ery com mon–in some cases le d or sup ported by t he f eder al level. I n so me

fewfields, so called “Joint Tasks” have been established: Financial schemes thatare

join tly design ed and im pleme nte d by feder al level and the Länd er (e.g. for un iver sit ies,

regional develop men t, rur al deve lopm ent and agriculture).

Federal level and Länder are spending subsidies with more or less the same volume,

with the Länder having a greater share in mostof the years114. This makes clear that

bo th leve ls are of rele vanc e w hen tal kin g ab out St ate aid in Ge rm any . Mu nicip alit ies are

also spending relevant amount s, but significantly less t han both t he Federal Level and

Länder.

Both the federal level and Länder are im plementing State aid-related support and are

relevant for this country profile. Some basic rules relevant for evaluation of State aid

schemes are quite similar. Nonetheless, there is a variety of attitudes towards the

implement ation of Stat e aidand their evaluation, mainly at Länder level, and practices

vary.115This country profile describes the situation atthe federal level in some detail.

For the situation at the Länder level, itgives an overall assessment of how far the

sit uat ion is com parab le o r d iffe rent to the sit uat ion at the Fed eral lev el – and of how far

the sit uation var ies bet ween Länder. Municipalities are n ot covered here.

The latest report on su bsidi es fo r t he yea rs 2 017 to 2020 counts on fed eral level a t otal

of 93 subsidy schemes with a financial volume of 37,878 billion EUR. 61 of these 93

schemes count as State aidin the European definition, they amount for 31,936 billion

113Sou rce: (Bundesm inisterium der Finanzen 2019, S. 71). In the 2017-2019 period the Federal State

spent the 38% of the total subsidies. See

https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de/Content/EN/Standardartikel/Press_Room/Publications/Brochure

s/2020-03-03-27subsidy-rep ort .pd f?__ blob = pub licat ionFil e&v = 4

114Subsidie s is not equal to stat e-aid; St ate aid is a sub set of subsidie s, som e t wo t hird s of the sub sidies

count as St ate aid. Figures are only systematically available for subsidies. In the 2017-2019 period the

Feder al St ate spent th e 38% of t he t otal subsidies, the Lan der t he 4 7% and the local admi nistr ation s th e

15 % .

115Ther e i s on ly a l im ite d b ody of lit er atu re ta kin g st ock of t he eval uat ion in Ger ma ny. Non e o f i t is f ocussi ng

on the role of Stat e aid . (W idm er et al. 20 09; Böt tche r et al. 20 14)