State aid authorised approved by the Commission in the last seven months (March to September)

Priority question for written answer  P-003349/2022
to the Commission
Rule 138
Zbigniew Kuźmiuk (ECR)

It is reported in the media that in the last seven months the Commission has accepted 97 state aid schemes from 24 Member States, totalling more than EUR 435 billion.

Of this, the aid provided by Germany exceeded EUR 226 billion (nearly 52% of all EU aid), and by France some EUR 160 billion (nearly 37% of EU aid). So these countries together account for nearly 90% of all state aid.

The remaining 10% of EU state aid was accounted for by the other 22 EU countries. Italy provided 3.8% of the EU total, Spain 2.1%, Poland nearly 1.7% and Romania nearly 1%, while the remaining countries reported to the Commission state aid amounting to fractions of a percent of total EU state aid.

Even taking into account the fact that Germany and France are the EU’s two biggest economies – their share of EU GDP is around 25% and 15% respectively, making a total of around 40% – the Commission’s approval of such huge state aid to these two countries violates equal competition rules and is a serious threat to the EU common market.

Is the Commission prepared to continue to approve such differentiated state aid to individual EU countries, especially when the German and French Governments have announced further aid programmes of EUR 200 billion and EUR 100 billion respectively?