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ANNOUNCEMENT 08 Jun 2016
In June 2016, the government of France announced a change in production support.
NUMBER OF INTERVENTIONS
1
SOURCE
Letter from the EC to France, 08.06.2016 (SA.43389) (in French)
http://ec.europa.eu/competition/state_aid/cases/263926/263926_1766383_134_2.pdf
List of eligible sectors (annex II)
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:OJ.C_.2012.158.01.0004.01.ENG&toc=OJ:C:2012:158:TOC
Update
SA.49875. Modification of the scheme in favour of undertakings exposed to a carbon leakage risk in France :
http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/case_details.cfm?proc_code=3_SA_49875
Original publication:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/JOHtml.do?uri=OJ:C:2018:379:SOM:EN:HTML
On 8 June 2016, the European Commission approved state aid for French energy-intensive industries within the EU Emission Trading System (henceforth: ETS).
The scheme includes 364 million EUR for the years 2015-18 but it will run until the end of 2020. The financing will be used to cover the higher electricity costs following the introduction of the ETS. The budget for the years 2019-2020 is likely to slightly decrease, as the maximum aid intensity will be reduced for the last two years from 85 to 75%.
The EC mentioned that the state aid "confers an advantage to beneficiaries by offsetting the costs they would have incurred under normal market conditions. The aid is selective in that it is only granted to companies operating in certain sectors. (...) these sectors are exposed to international competition; the aid is therefore likely to affect trade between Member States and distort competition" (own translation).
A state measure in the GTA database is assessed solely in terms of the extent to which its implementation affects the extent of discrimination against foreign commercial interests. On this metric, the state aid proposed here is discriminatory.
Update
On 23 July 2018, the Commission approved SA. 49875 confirming the budget of the present measure. Notably, the 2015-2020 budget was set at EUR 500 million. The annual budget, when compared to the 2015-2018 preliminary budget previously described, decreased from EUR 91 million to EUR 83 million.