Droit européen des aides d’État et Covid-19 : évolutions et perspectives

Abstract

The Covid-19 health crisis fastly induced an economic and a global one. Facing the damages caused to the economy of member states by lockdowns and other restrictive measures, the European Commission has softened the framework of European Union (EU) state aid law to allow the states to support their companies and citizens. The paradigm shift provoked by the global crisis has led the EU institutions to make their vision of state aid law evolve. Initially conceived as a prohibitive and regulatory law part of the EU competition policy, the EU state aid law became an instrument intended to absorb economic shocks in the EU. However, the goals of the EU new state aid law framework are affected by the limited scope of action of EU institutions in increasingly strategic fields, namely health, cultural, educational, social, industrial, and transport policies. Such a limitation has led the member states to play a leading role by supporting both their national economy, and the EU one. This paper aims to examine the evolutions and prospects of the EU state aid law, in the light of the Covid-19 global crisis. It will involve more precisely to demonstrate that the mobilization of this component of EU competition law is necessary, but insufficient to respond to the above-mentioned crisis.