Modernisation of EU State aid procedures: are the rights of third parties more protected?

• Author: Anduena Gjevori
• Pages: 45-59

Modernisation of EU State aid procedures:

are the rights of third parties more protected?

PhD student Anduena GJEVORI

1

Abstrac t

Despite the import ant role in inc reasing efficien cy of the State ai d control an d in

reveali ng the existen ce of Sta te aid , third parties in EU St ate aid procedu res are consi dered

merely a s a “source of informatio n”. This a rticle provid es a critical an alysis of the reforms

of State aid p rocedures from a third party perspec tive. The reforms a re disa ppointi ng

mainta ining t he bila teral ch aracter of S tate ai d procedures be tween two main part ies the

Commission and t he Member S tates con cerned and le aving third parties with ve ry limited

proced ural ri ghts. In addi tion the hard-law reform o f the S tate aid procedures of 2013

increa ses the procedural duti es of thi rd parti es without proce dural guarant ees and extend s

the in vestigatory p owers of the Commission .

Keyword s: State aid proced ures, thi rd pa rty, Proced ural Regulatio n, Sta te ai d

reforms.

JEL Cla ssification: K22, K23, K33

1. Introduction

In the beginning the administrative procedure in State aid matters was

based on primary legislation and on the Commission’s practice as well as the case

law of the European Courts. A “Regulation laying down detailed rules for the

application of Article 93 [now Article 108] of the EC Treaty” was adopted by the

Council on 22 March 1999 (the “Procedural Regulation”).

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The first objective of

the Procedural Regulation was to codify the procedural rules, developed by the

Court of Justice

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through its case law and the practice of the Commission into one

legally binding document. Whereas the second objective was to strengthen control

of State aid by removing those aspects of the existing system that endangered the

1

Anduena Gjevori - LL.M. (European and International Law, University of Amsterdam), PhD

student and lecturer in European Business Law, Faculty of Economy, University of Elbasan,

Albania, anduena.gjevori@uniel.edu.al.

2

Council Regulation 1999/659/EC of 22 March 1999 laying down detailed rules for the application

of Article 93 of the EC Treaty, OJ L 83/1, 27 M arch 1999.

3

For the conditions developed by the Court of Justice to be satisfied for a measure to qualify as

State aid see Cătălin-Silviu Săraru, State Aids that are Incompatible with the Internal Market in

European Court of Justice Case L aw, in Cătălin-Silviu Săraru (ed.), Studies of Business Law –

Recent Developments and Perspectives, Peter Lang International A cademic Publishers, Frankfurt ,

2013, pp . 39-48.