A free webinar presented by the Centre of European Law, King’s College London & George Washington University Law School
The European Commission is concerned that subsidies granted by non-EU governments to companies active in the European Union appear to have an increasing impact on the Single Market. Although the EU has tools at its disposal to address some of the distortions caused by foreign subsidies, the Commission is concerned that the existing tools do not fully address all possible distortions caused by these foreign subsidies, including in EU public procurement markets. In June 2020 the Commission therefore adopted a White Paper on Foreign Subsidies, which proposed ways to level the playing field and called for new tools to address this regulatory gap. The White Paper and its challenges were assessed in a prior webinar by our colleagues Professor Michal Kania (University of Silesia) and Roland Stein (BLOMSTEIN, Berlin), and at online conferences hosted by Concorrenze and Wolters Kluwer. The White Paper put forward several approaches:
Module 1 would introduce a general market scrutiny instrument to capture all possible market situations in which foreign subsidies are provided to beneficiaries in the EU and may cause distortions in the Single Market.
Module 2 is intended to address distortions caused by foreign subsidies facilitating the acquisition of EU companies.
Module 3 would address the effect of foreign subsidies on EU public procurement procedures.
Finally, the White Paper sets out an option to review foreign subsidies in the case of applications for EU financial support.
Panelists Andrea Biondi, Luca Rubini, Michael Bowsher and Christopher Yukins submitted comments on the White Paper, including a recommendation that the Commission not undertake potentially damaging regulation of public procurement markets (Module 3).
Link
As a follow-up to the White Paper, the European Commission announced different options to address distortions caused by foreign subsidies. According to the Commission Work Programme 2021, a legislative proposal for levelling the playing field would come forward in the second quarter of 2021. To prepare the ground for future action, on 6 October 2020 the Commission published an Inception Impact Assessment, available on the consultation website; the feedback on the Inception Impact Assessment is published here.
At the same time, the UK Government has published its own proposed approach to a related trade issue, under the UK’s proposed National Security and Investment Bill — how to address to national security threats posed by acquisitions in sensitive industries, through a review mechanism akin to the U.S. government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
PROGRAMME
Chair – Professor Andrea Biondi, King’s College London
Speakers :
- Christof Schoser, DG Competition, European Commission – The White Paper: where are we now?
- Dr Luca Rubini, University of Birmingham – Module 1 – The White Paper and its relationship with WTO rules.
- Elisabetta Righini, Latham & Watkins, Module 1 – The White Paper and State Aid law.
- Professor Renato Nazzini, King’s College London – Module 2 – The White Paper and competition law.
- Professors Christopher Yukins, GW Law and Michael Bowsher QC, Monckton Chambers and King’s College London – Module 3 – The White Paper and Public Procurement.
- Alexander Rose, DWF – The white paper and its impact on the EU-UK negotiations.
- Christof Schoser, DG Competition, European Commission – Closing Remarks
Enquiries to Christine Copping, Centre of European Law – christine.copping@kcl.ac.uk
Additional Resources
Dr. Willem Janssen & Dr. Marta Andhov, Podcast, 3rd country bidders’ access to the EU market
