31/03/10

Should aid be granted to firms in difficulty?

A study of hypothetical scenarios relating to the restructuring of state aid was published on behalf of the European Commission.

The European Commission commissioned a study of hypothetical scenarios in relation to restructuring state aid. The document, put together by Oxera and with the provocative title “Should aid be granted to firms in difficulty?”, was published last December.

The aim of the study was to investigate European firms that had experienced financial difficulty and to inform the European Commission of what might happen to those firms seeking restructuring aid if such aid were not available.

Until now, such requests for aid were assessed and closely controlled by the European Commission, which tended to presume that it could save a significant number of jobs and businesses that would otherwise disappear.

The conclusions of the study on the impact on a firm’s survival, on output and employment, or the impact at industry and regional level, might be taken into consideration by the European Commission in its assessment of individual cases or in its future review of its general guidelines on restructuring aid.

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