2 research outputs found
From Negative to Positive Integration. European State Aid Control through Soft and Hard Law
European state aid control, a part of competition policy, typically follows the logic of
negative integration. It constrains the potential for Member States to distort competition by
reducing their ability to subsidize industry. In addition, this paper argues, ambiguous Treaty
rules and heterogeneous Member States' preferences have enabled the European Commission
to act as a supranational entrepreneur, not only enforcing the prohibition of distortive state
aid, but also developing its own vision of “good” state aid policy. In order to prevent or to
settle political conflict about individual decisions, the Commission has sought to establish
more general criteria for the state aid which it still deems admissible. These criteria have
been codified into a complex system of soft law and, more recently, hard state aid law. The
Commission has thus created positive integration “from above” and increasingly influences
the objectives of national state aid policies