Executive summary

• Author: Naldini, Andrea; Pompili, Marco; Peruccacci, Eleonora
• Pages: 8-17

8

Executive Summ ary

TheFact-finding study on the

implementation of the evaluation

requirem ents foreseen by t he GBER and

relevant guidelinesanalyses the

implementation of theevalu ation

requirements as defined by both the

General Block Exemption Regulation

(GBER) and the European Com mission’s

( EC) re lev ant g uid elin es t o inf orm th e EC

policymaking with findings andlessons

learnt. In particular, the studyaims to

assess the efficiency ofthe

implementation of the evaluation

requirements froma legal,

organisat ion al and t ech nica l p ers pect iv e.

To achieve this goal the studyanalyses

the national requirements fo r the

ev aluat ion of St at e ai din th e 2 7MSsand

the UK(undertask 1) and the

implementation of the evaluation

requirements in the 14MSsand the UK

for which an evaluation plan was either

under discussion or approvedby a

Commission decision, by the end of

Decem ber 201 9 ( under t ask 2).

Th e m ain r esult s of t ask 1

Task 1 focused on the nat iona l ru les and

capacityin the evaluation of State aid

schemes.The firstfinding of task1

concer ns the possibleadm inistrative

burdenderiving fromtheevaluationof

Statea id sc hem es:in cou ntr ies cove ring

around 70%oft he EU State aid

expenditure, obligations to evaluate

already existand, consequently, a

higher quota of St ate aidschemes cou ld

be evaluated without excessive

add itional burden.

On theotherhand, if the m ain pri ority is

t o in vol ve all th e co unt ri es i n ev alu at ions

ofState aid, the potential burden could

be sign if icant i n so me of th em . Ho wev er,

the evaluationunits created forESI F

programmes are widespread and

relatively developed inmany countries;

a mor e di rect inv olve men t of t hese u nit s

inState aidevaluationmay reduce the

administrative impact of new

evaluations.

Monetary costs of the evaluations are

modest andrepresenta minimal quota

of t he b udget for State aid .

Consequen tly, we can statethat

administrative costs do not represent a

significant obstacle tothe evaluationof

aid schemes;however,theymustbe

consider ed from the perspective of

reinforcing eva luat ion act ivities.

A second im portant aspect concerns the

type of evaluation. Inpractice, all MSs

implement some kind of evaluation of

State aidschemes. In countries where

impactevaluations are notcarriedout,

ex-ante assessments to verify

com pliance with EU rules and national

budgetconstraints are generally

im plem ented. Every countryhas set up

a more or less sophist icated aid scheme

monitoring systemto verifyState aid

expenditures, identifybeneficiaries and

to provide the EC with the required

information. Expanding and

consolidat ing these systems a nd th e ex -

post assessments in their regular

activities would be a logical integration

of the existing national systems for

controlling State aidandthe

organisation thereofwould notrequire

excessiveeffort.

A third aspect concernst he willingness

to evaluate.The analysis shows how

countries withobligations to evaluate

have builtup their evaluation capacity

over manyyears of political and

administrative commitmentto assess

public policies. Instead, in some

cou nt ries wit hou t eval uat ion obl igat ion s,

the managementof State aidis

organised more to address EC requests

and com ply wit h EU r ules rather than to

examine the efficiency and the

effectiveness of the aidschemes.It is

not easy to improve andreinforce the

commitment to evaluate. As all the

national managementsystems of State