Revision of the General Block Exemption Regulation

ClientEarth welcomes the European Commission's public consultation on the draft of the revised General Block Exemption Regulation ("GBER"). The GBER is a cornerstone of EU State aid law that allows EU Member States to grant specific categories of State aid - such as subsidies or tax breaks - without first having to notify or seek approval from the European Commission. It covers a broad scope of policy objectives and concerns 69% of all active State aid measures, representing 36% of the total State aid expenditure amounting to 60.70 billion euro. It therefore has great potential to support the EU's environmental objectives but equally has a role to play in preventing Member States from subsidising environmentally harmful projects.

In our contribution to the public consultation, we first made some general comments that apply to the GBER overall. We stressed again that the horizontal integration of environmental protection in State aid policy is key in preventing environmentally harmful subsidies. It should be achieved by ensuring that no State aid is granted in breach of EU environmental law and by integrating additional environmental safeguards into State aid policy. We also strongly oppose the extended support for fossil gas and the inclusion of low-carbon fuels. Second, we set out a range of recommendations for the specific aid categories (articles), mostly with respect to energy and environment. This includes:

• investment aid for climate protection, 
• investment aid for the prevention/reduction of pollution and actions for climate resilience, 
• investment aid for the promotion of energy from renewable sources and high-efficiency cogeneration, and direct price support for the production of electricity from renewable sources
• aid in the form of reductions in taxes under Energy Taxation Directive
• investment aid for district heating and/or cooling
• aid to support investment in fossil gas infrastructure
• aid for airports and ports