EU LAW AND STATE AIDS IN AGRICULTURE

Regulation of state aids form an integral part of the EU law from its very origin. Various special rules on provision of state aids were created as secondary law rules by the EU Council and EU Commission. They distinguish between horizontal and sectoral state aid. Horizontal aid concerns schemes potentially benefiting all undertakings regardless of their industry. Sectoral aid is targeted at specific industries or sectors. The paper deals with the legal framework of state aid rules in the agriculture sector. As first, it discusses the extent to which the State aid rules have been generally applied in the agriculture sector by the EU Council under Article 36 of the Treaty, together with the extent to which they have been specifically applied under the regulations which govern both the .common organizations of the market and rural development. Following chapter analyses the agriculture de minimis Regulation, which sets out circumstances in which agricultural aid is sufficiently small that Article 107/1 TFEU will be not applied. Thereafter the paper focuses on the provisions of the Agriculture Block Exemption Regulation and, finally, on agricultural aid that falls to be notified to the Commission as being authorized under the Agriculture Guidelines.