The objective and the background

• Author: Naldini, Andrea; Pompili, Marco; Peruccacci, Eleonora
• Pages: 19-23

19

Section 1.The objective and the background

1.1.The objective of the stud y

The purpose of the study is to pr ovide t he European Comm ission wit h an independent

fact-f inding analysisconcerning the im plem entation of the Evaluation requirements as

fo rese en by th e GBER and th e r ele van t gui del ines app lica ble sin ce Ju ly 20 15. The re sult s

may fuelECpolicy making and, in part icular, int oany new rules for State aidschemes

and t heir eva luat ion, as w ell as in tot he met hod s and p rocesses for t he i mpl ement atio n

ofaid schemes evaluation.

To these aims,the study provides an analysis of the national rules and arrangements

to carry out evaluations on State aidand suggestions to improve compliance with

evaluation requ irem ent s and t he fut ure regu latory framewor k.Th e study also assesses

and provides a fullpicture of the national arrangements in which State aidevaluations

are imp lement ed.

1.2.EU rule s on State aidevaluation

In 2014, the State AidModernisation (SAM) initiative defined the new principles to

regulate St ate ai daft er t he 2 008 cr isis. The p rincipleswere int end ed t o str ike a balance

bet ween the increasing requests for State aidas well as for exemptions of their

notifications, as opposed to the n eed to safeguard market compet ition during the long

an d f rag ile reco ver y of the Eur opea n e cono my . The ba lanc e be tw een th e d iff eren t need s

wa s fo und in th e ex ten sion and sim pl ifica tio n o fthede m inim is and exe mptions and th e

introduction of obligations intransparency, monitoring and evaluation of State aid.

These obligat ions aim to provide t ranspar ency in the use of State aidand t o verify the

limited market distortions and the positive impacts generated by the permitted

subsidies.

This ap proach responds t o t wo main issues:

−Accountability, because t he primary purpose of evaluation is to verify whether

the orig ina l j ust ifica tio ns f or th e us e of St ate aid - l imi ted im pact s o n comp etit ion

and positive impacts on the economy- have been respected. This purpose

includes the principle of compliance and is mainly targetedat EU institutions,

natio nal gov ernment s and st akeholder s.

−Learning, because evaluation m ust provide evidence toinformdecisions on the

continuation and the future design of State aid. This second purpose mainly

servesDG COMP, national authorities responsible for the schemes and

stakeholder s and b eneficiaries of each in dividual scheme.

The two purposes are implicit and not clearly separated in regulations1, but their

differen tiation helps to highlight the multi-objective nature of the evaluation of State

aidand t he diff eren t respon sibilit ies and int erests in i ts i mplem ent atio n. For in stan ce, a

MS which is implementing a large scheme may be more interestedinthe learning

purpose since it wants to supp ort it s econom y, but other MSs or EU institu tio ns m ay be

special ly int erested inaccou nt ability t o be sur e t hat th e ai d sch eme doe s not dist ort the

EU single m ark et.

1Also, f rom a t heor etic al poi nt of v iew account abil ity and learn ing have sever al co mm on el emen ts; on thi s

see Guijt I.Accountability and Learning, inUbels J., Acquaye-Baddoo N. and FowlerA . Ca pacit y

dev elopm ent in prac tice, 2010, Earthscan.