E.CA supports study for the revision of the EEAG & Section 7 of GBER
DG Competition of the European Comission commissioned a consortium with a study to support the revision of the EU Guidelines on State aid for environmental protection and energy (EEAG) and the General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER). E.CA Economics was part of this consortium together with DIW Berlin, LEAR, SheppardMullin and University of East Anglia.
The report provides with background information for the review of the EU Guidelines on State aid for environmental protection and energy (EEAG) applicable in 2014-2020 and on the provisions applicable to aid for environmental protection and energy (Section 7) of Commission Regulation (EU) 651/2014 (GBER).
The study consists of three study items.
Transparency, Tendering, Broadening
This study item examines whether and how the transparency of environmental protection costs of decarbonisation aid schemes should be increased by quantifying both the benefits to environmental protection and their costs. It also addresses whether tendering requirements in aid schemes should be extended. Finally, the study item assesses whether environmental protection schemes can be broadened to different sectors and technologies which could advance the same environmental protection objective to a similar extent, rather than being sector- or technology-specific.
Operating Aid vs. Investment Aid
The challenges of the green transition might require new types of aid and the traditional distinction between operating aid and investment aid needs to be re-examined. Hence, study item 2 examines the effectiveness and distortive effect of different forms of aid by reviewing the existing literature, case stud-ies on four representative schemes and modelling hypothetical future aid schemes in important sectors.
Energy intensive Users
This study item assesses whether the currently used economic parameters to determine the eligibility of sectors for exemptions from decarbonisation levies for Energy-Intensive Users (“EIUs”) are the most relevant parameters for the risk of relocation from an economic perspective. Further it aims at determining the extent to which the profitability of EIUs is affected by different levels of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and Combined Heat Power (CHP) levies on electricity for a sample of 10 sectors.
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E.CA representatives also involved: Hans W. Friederiszick, Jan Christopher Rönn