Country Profile: Germany

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

123

6. COUNTRY PROFI LE: GERM ANY

Int roduct ion

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

of State aid spen t in t he EU in the sam e year. Althou gh t he absolut e am ount is

significant, the intensity of State aid – as share of the GNP – is not ex tremely high: it

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

show a higher Stat e-aid intensity113.

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

different st at e lev els but separat ed. Thus, the federal lev el and the Länder have t heir

own respon sibilities. While reg ional development policy or educat ion, for inst ance, 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.

Sim ult aneously, and p artly because of this separation of r esponsibilities, a variety of

different ways t o coordinate t he levels is exper ienced. Negotiat ions to coordin at e th e

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

few fields, so called “ Joint Tasks” have been est ablished: Financial schem es that are

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 Län der are spendin g sub sidies with m ore or less the same volume,

with t he Länder having a great er shar e in most of the years114. This m akes clear t hat

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 am ount s, but significan tly less t han both t he Federal Level and

Länder.

Bot h the feder al level an d Länder are im plem enting St at e aid-relat ed support and are

relevant for th is count ry profile. Som e basic rules relev ant for evaluat ion of State aid

schemes are quit e sim ilar. Nonetheless, t here is a variety of att it udes towards the

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

vary.115 This countr y profile descr ibes the situation at the federal level in some detail.

For the sit uation at the Länder level, it giv es an ov er all assessm ent of how far t he

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 9 3

schemes count as State aid in the European definition, they amoun t for 31 ,9 36 b illion

113 Sou rce: ( Bun desm inisterium der Fin anzen 2 019, S. 71) . I n t he 20 17-201 9 period the Federal St ate

spen t the 38% of t he total subsidies. See

ht tp s: //www.b undesfinanzm inisterium.de/Content / EN/Standardart ikel/ Press_Room / Publicat ion s/ Brochure

s/ 2020-0 3-03-27subsidy -rep ort .pd f?__ blob = pub licat ionFil e&v = 4

114 Subsidie 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

coun t as St ate aid. Figu res are only syst ematically av ailable for su bsidies. In t he 2017-2019 p eriod 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 % .

115 Ther 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)