From Negative to Positive Integration. European State AidControl through Soft and Hard Law

摘要

European state aid control, a part of competition policy, typically follows the logic ofnegative integration. It constrains the potential for Member States to distort competition byreducing their ability to subsidize industry. In addition, this paper argues, ambiguous Treatyrules and heterogeneous Member States' preferences have enabled the European Commissionto act as a supranational entrepreneur, not only enforcing the prohibition of distortive stateaid, but also developing its own vision of “good” state aid policy. In order to prevent or tosettle political conflict about individual decisions, the Commission has sought to establishmore general criteria for the state aid which it still deems admissible. These criteria havebeen codified into a complex system of soft law and, more recently, hard state aid law. TheCommission has thus created positive integration “from above” and increasingly influencesthe objectives of national state aid policies.