This year’s Forum on State aid provides again a unique platform for an exchange of views and experience between various players – both private and institutional – involved in this field.
A major subject of this Forum will be the new conception of the role of the State in services of general economic interest. Therefore the new jurisprudence of the Court and its implementation by the Commission, following the criteria set up by the ECJ in the Altmark case, is to be examined.
Another important issue is the latest development in State intervention in favour of enterprises in difficulties. Besides the recent decisions of the Commission concerning the determination of the measures of compensation (Alstom and Berliner Bankgesellschaft cases), the new guidelines for the application of Articles 87 and 88 EC to the granting of State aid for rescuing and restructuring firms in difficulty, due to come into force in October 2004, will be of great importance.
In addition, the Commission had to decide in several cases about the range and the interpretation concerning the definition of State aid. In this context the questions whether financial promises can be regarded as State aid and whether indirect aid can be recovered, had to be resolved. Finally, the recovering of unlawful State aid remains a current problem. This results from the recent decisions of the ECJ concerning recovery from enterprises which had acquired assets from an original beneficiary (Seleco and SMI cases).
Weiterleiten
