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• Effects of the State Aid Soft Law on Beneficiaries: Annotation on an order of the General Court

  118-127

  Péter Staviczky

  Views:

  189

  The European Commission issues guidelines and other soft law instruments to define the compatibility conditions of State aid to be granted by Member States with the internal market. Although the soft law is only binding on the Commission it has not negligible indirect effect on the Member States state aid policy and thereby on other policies. So far it was not clear how much beneficiaries could find remedy at European Courts against the soft law issued by the Commission. The present article gives a description on the adoption of the new energy and environmental aid guidelines with the focus on the conditions related to aid to operating aid to energy generation from renewable energy sources in the context of the State Aid modernization initiative. A comparison to the previous rules was also made. Thereafter the article summarizes an order of the General Court issued in a procedure where an applicant has initiated action for annulment of the guidelines. The article also tries to draw some conclusions about the possibilities and limits of beneficiaries and Member States to question the legality of State aid soft law instruments at European Courts.

• In Contrast: Responsibility for Environment and Regulation in Finance

  128-155

  Ildikó Bartha

  Péter Bordás

  Tamás Horváth M.

  Views:

  279

  The more environmental policy comes into the focus of fiscal policies of governments, the more prevailing are the interests in it influencing the governance as a whole. In the context of the European Union, the governmental role of the Member States’ increased less for initiating the (often invoked) environmental protection but such an increase is rather an end in itself. The responsibility for environment seems to represent the bright side, while the reality of financial regulations shows the dark side of government priorities.