WRITTEN QUESTION No. 2532/97 by Gunilla CARLSSON to the Commission. State aid and openness
Date: 1997-07-24
Institutions: CARLSSON, European Parliament
Subjects: State aid, administrative transparency, aid to industry, appeal to the Court (EU), confidentiality, control of State aid, restriction on competition, single market

17. 3. 98

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 82/103

At any rate the Commission will make sure that Parliament has access to the information on which the experts in
the Scientific Committee base their work.

Besides, to do justice to the principle of transparency and impartiality in selection, a Parliament observer and a
Council observer  were invited to attend  the procedure  for selecting the scientific experts most suitable to be
appointed to the scientific committees.

(98/C 82/168)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2532/97

by Gunilla Carlsson (PPE) to the Commission

(24 July 1997)

Subject: State aid and openness

Pursuant to Article 93(2) and (3) of the EC Treaty, state aid to industry must be notified to the Commission,
which is then to examine whether it is compatible with other parts of the Treaty and does not, for instance, run
counter  to  the  competition  rules  mentioned  in  Article  92(1).  The  information  Member  States  supply  to  the
Commission is confidential and goes no further. It is therefore not possible for anyone else to monitor whether
the aid does in fact distort competition or not.

Does  the  Commission  consider  this  lack  of  openness  to  be  compatible  with  an  effectively  monitored
competition-based market?

Answer given by Mr Van Miert on behalf of the Commission

(11 September 1997)

The Commission agrees that whenever the views of third parties are available in state aid cases, the Commission
should take appropriate account of these. However the Commission wishes to recall that state aid proceedings, as
foreseen by the EC Treaty, are based on a dialogue between the Commission and the Member State concerned
and that the addressee for any decision resulting from such proceedings is that Member State.

According to the case law of the Court of justice the Commission is only obliged to invite third party comments
pursuant  to  Article  93(2)  of  the  EC  Treaty  after  opening  the  formal  investigation  procedure.  Where  the
Commission, after a preliminary assessment, has no doubts as to the compatibility of the aid with the common
market it is not obliged to seek the view of third parties. In any event in such cases inviting third party comments
would  be  disproportionate  in  that  this  would  delay  the  procedure  although  the  aid  does  not  unduly  affect
competition in the common market. In this connection, some 60% of all Commission decisions in the field of
state aid approve notified schemes that are in line with the Commission’s guidelines and frameworks. Notified
individual cases and unnotified aid (mostly individual cases) each account for half the remaining 40%. As for the
former, the Commission also observes that Member States increasingly take full account of the Commission’s
assessment criteria as laid down in guidelines and frameworks.

Moreover,  the  Commission  considers  that  protecting  the  confidentiality  of  Member  States(cid:146)  notifications  and
correspondence with Member States is often required to safeguard commercial interests of state aid beneficiaries
and does not hamper the efficiency of state aid control.

Furthermore,  the  Commission’s  decisions  in  the  state  aid  field  are  subject  to  judicial  review  by  the  Court  of
justice. Pursuant to Article 190 of the EC Treaty, the Commission states the reasons on which it decides on the
compatibility of aid with the common market to allow for proper judicial review of its decision. Member States
and any interested third party have access to Commission decisions on state aid and may therefore ascertain
whether the Commission has acted in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty. Where a Member State or an
interested party directly and individually concerned by a Commission decision consider that the Commission has
not applied the rules correctly they may pursuant to Article 173 of the EC Treaty institute proceedings against
that decision before the Court of justice.