European State Aid during COVID-19

Summary During the COVID-19 unexpected pandemic crisis, to minimalize socio-economic damages within the Member States, the European Commission has taken several steps to increase the flexibility of the support framework and include more diversified forms of aid and extended time-frames for granting them. Implementing urgent measures, in particular for the sectors that are mostly affected by the economic shock and unpredicted limitations pushed them to increase their resilience to be more stable for emergencies. In order to ensure the EU internal market is not fragmented and the level of playing field stays intact, as well as to avoid harmful subsidy races to the detriment of cohesion within the Union, the use of State Aid proved its necessity in various diversified forms of aid. The article discusses State Aid in the context of the global pandemic and tries to find out raised questions. © 2022 Turan Jafarli, published by Sciendo.

Public Financial Support to Aviation During the COVID-19 in the Baltic Countries

The paper analyses government financial support (state aid) arrangements to the aviation sector in the Baltic countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation. The support schemes include three main features. First, the design of public support schemes grounds on a standardized Keynesian framework of stimulation measures during economic recessions. Second, state aid is a rather sensitive issue in the European Union context. Support schemes are generally banned and strictly regulated even in the global pandemic situation. Third, stimulation measures depend on countries' capabilities to support their flag carriers. Which has a direct impact on the post-COVID-19 competition situation in the region. The paper focuses on comparative analyses of the scope of state aid in the COVID-19 situation in the Baltic Sea Region. In the frames of research is given an overview of stimulative instruments proposed by international aviation organizations. As a conclusion will be discussed motives to support aviation and stimulation schemes particularities. © 2021 Kaunas University of Technology. All rights reserved.