July 2016, European State Aid Law Quarterly: “Electric Generation and State Aid: Compatibility is the Question”

Last July 2016 our partner Daniel Pérez Rodríguez published following article entitled "Electricity Generation and State Aid: Compatibility Is The Question" in the European State Aid Law Journal (EStAL) Quarterly, Volume 15 (issue 2, 2016), a leading journal in the field of state aid law.

Following please find an extract of this publication, which in its full version contains 21 pages. Due to copyright regulations we can only publish an abstract.

"It was once thought that aid given through the electric system to electricity generators did not constitute State resources, and thus, it was excluded from the Commission’s State aid control. However, time has shown that this was not the general rule, but rather an exception, due to the specific factual circumstances of the analysed measure in PreussenElektra. At least this was the case for the Court of Justice of the European Union, to whose case law the Commission has adapted swiftly. At the moment, it is clear that almost all measures to support electricity generation need to be authorised by the Commission. Hence, focus has shifted to the question of whether a measure is compatible with the internal market rules. In 2014, Commission Guidelines were approved in this field, which are applicable for aid to renewables and aid to generation adequacy, whereas aid to nuclear and coal are still analysed under general State aid rules".

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