Setting the Scene for Competition Policy Control of Regional Aid 2014+

Recent developments in State aid control have been dominated by the financial and economic crisis and, latterly, by exit strategies from the special measures introduced to deal with the fall-out from the crisis. In the course of the last few months, however, consideration has also been given to the revision of the regional aid guidelines for the post2013 period. The aim of this paper is to consider the issues raised by the European Commission and the Member States, particularly against the backdrop of regional economic change since the adoption of the current guidelines and in the context of the proposed Cohesion policy reforms for 2014-20.