Staatssteun aan banken : een analyse van de beschikkingspraktijk van de Commissie

During the financial crisis, many banks experienced difficulties. Since the downfall of a bank might trigger the failure of other banks, most governments decided to rescue ‘their’ banks. In the European Union, governments have to take into account the State aid dimension of these rescue measures. Since rescue measures (such as guarantees, capital injections and asset relief measures) usually entail State aid, these measures have to be authorised by the European Commission. The Commission thus plays a central role in State aid cases. During the financial crisis, the Commission has adopted hundreds of bank State aid decisions. This book provides an analysis of the Commission’s decisional practice.
The starting point of this book is the observation that there is a lack of clarity as to whether the bank State aid decisions of the Commission are in line with the principle of equal treatment. This lack of clarity is addressed in this book. Firstly, this book discusses the background of State aid and State aid control, the Crisis Communications of the Commission, the relevant case-law of the Court of Justice EU and the impact of the banking union. Secondly, this book focusses on the principle of equal treatment and on the possible approaches to finding out whether a different treatment constitutes an unequal treatment. In that regard, a novel approach is introduced. Ultimately, this book provides a framework which can be used to assess whether a bank State aid decision complies with the principle of equal treatment.