The coronavirus crisis and the transformation of EU state aid control: a governance perspective

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 21K13253
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 06020:International relations-related
• Research Institution: Kansai University
• Principal Investigator: Yoshizawa Hikaru 関西大学, 法学部, 准教授 (90743857)
• Project Period (FY): 2021-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: EU / 競争政策 / 国家補助 / パンデミック / ガバナンス / 政策変容

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The state aid control system of the European Union (EU) is part of its competition policy and seeks to reduce the risk of subsidy races among the member states. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Commission was put under pressure because many state aid plans were submitted by the member states to rescue their industries.

This study examined whether the pandemic caused a major shift in the decision-making process in this field. A major finding of the study is that the European Commission primarily used a "temporary framework", a form of soft law, to set temporary, non-binding, and comparatively lenient rules, as it did during the global financial crisis. Neither the use of soft law nor the flexible application of rules during economic crises are new in the context of EU state aid control. Therefore, one may conclude that the pandemic was a crisis but led to a temporary and partial policy adaptation rather than a fundamental transformation in terms of the decision-making process.

Free Research Field

国際関係論

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究は、EU研究に２つの面で貢献した。第一に、パンデミックという危機が起こったにもかかわらず、国家補助規制の基本的な仕組みが変化しなかったことを示した。これは、欧州経済統合の要である「域内市場」での競争環境について考えるうえでも重要な知見であると思われる。第二に、EU復興基金（次世代EU）の創設過程はすでに政治学的観点から研究されているが、国家補助規制の分野における欧州委員会のパンデミック対応は、今回の研究で初めて明らかになった。EUの国家補助規制は欧州各国企業に与える影響が非常に大きい。したがって、その最新動向を知ることは、EU市民のみならず日本に住む人々にとっても重要であると言える。