Infrastructure Financing and State Aid Control: The Potential for a Virtuous Relationship

Abstract

Since 2012, the European Commission has taken the case law of the Court of Justice in Aéroports de Paris and Leipzig Halle as a basis for developing a systematic approach to infrastructure financing under State aid rules. In this chapter we analyse how the rules on State aid are being applied to infrastructure financing in the modernization era, taking into account the General Block Exemption Regulation, the Notice on the Notion of Aid and the Analytical Grids of 2016–2017. We discuss the relationship between the substantive principles of State aid modernization and the Investment Plan for Europe and the challenges that the Commission and national authorities face in this area.