European State Aid during COVID-19

ABSTRACT

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.