State Aid for Environmental Protection

Sammanfattning: One of the important problems concerning European Environmental law is the lack of coherence in the European legal system including Competition rules&semic granting state aid for environmental protection reasons is one of these problems. In this sense, after more than twenty years of community legislations in the field of environmental protection, the European commission adopts in the 1994 the Community Guidelines of state aid for environmental protection which was revised in the 2001and replaced with a new one. The European Commission approach towards the state aid for environmental protection, from the beginning of the1970s to the adoption of the Community Guidelines of state aid for environmental protection 2001, has not been changed so much in spite of the changes in its legal bases. It depends on three basic points: Firstly the aid must be temporary and needful. Secondly it does not exceed the necessary level of the need and finally it must not have disproportionate effects on competition rules. To achieve this goal, the European commission depended on the polluter pay principles and the discretionary power authorized to examine the state aid This thesis deals with the following main question: How the European commission reacts to environmental aid and whether the European commission approach towards state aid for environmental protection especially in 2001 has achieved a balance between competition rules and environmental principles? The European commission view towards state aid is that aid should no longer be used to make up for the absence of cost internationalization. If environmental requirements are to be taken into account in the long term, prices must accurately reflect cost. The European commission seems furthermore to be more indulgent for environmental justifications brought forward by Member States, compared to its approach to environmental considerations forwarded by undertakings. Through the examination of more 15 cases of state aid, I concluded the following: 1. The question of co-existence of interest between the competition rules and environmental principles is direct or indirect asked.2. The European Court of Justice is more environmentally friendly than the European commission, but the Court can have some severe positions with environmental friendly.3. The European Commission is Competition interest friendly. The thesis in the first point explains the relation between the European competition policy and the environmental policy in EC treaty, Art.2, 3, 6,174.This will be followed by the role of state aid in Environmental policy Art.87 and the exemption aid taking in the consideration the environmental exemptions and then a brief description of the most important and main Environmental principles: precaution and prevention, rectifying environmental damage at source and polluter pays principles in order to give background to the position of these principles. Thereafter the thesis examines the 2001 Community guidelines on state aid for environmental protection with case law and focus on the types of aid in it: investment aid, aid to SMEs for advisory/consultancy services in the Environmental field and operating aid .The thesis will end with the general perspectives for community law on environmental state aid and conclusion.