The Confluence of the Janus-Faced EU and Hungarian Domestic State Aid Law through Crises

Abstract

The permacrisis, including the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s war on Ukraine and the urge for the green transition, has put the European Union in a situation whereby it has had to act without delay in many fields, of which one was and still is, the EU’s State Aid Law. The European Commission adopted a set of soft law instruments, thereby effectuating the greatest shift in state aid the internal market has ever seen. This shift, however, has had impacts on the competences of the Commission, the power of the Commission, and the undistorted nature of the internal market itself. We are now marking Hungary’s 20th year as a Member of the EU, and this anniversary hallmarks great changes in the division of competences within and between the Commission, other institutions, and the Member States. In this paper, I intend to elaborate on this shift in the field of State Aid Law in the light of the permacrisis.