European Competition Law provides a wide-ranging review of the European rules relating to competition: restrictive agreements, abuse of a dominant position, impact of intellectual property rights, procedure, merger control, State aid.

European Competition Law

According to the Court of Justice, aid to employment maintenance, in principle prohibited as it is assimilated to operating aid, may be authorized in exceptional occurrences where it concerns regions which fulfill certain defined criteria, and where they are degressive and limited in time . Employment aid fell within the Block Exemption Regulation No 800/2008 where it was granted in favor of SMEs and concerned either employment directly created by an investment project or as part of a regional aid  - provided that the notification threshold of EUR 7.5 million per undertaking per investment project was not exceeded - or disadvantaged and disabled workers - provided that it did not exceed EUR 10 million per undertaking per year. Regulation No 651/2014 treats the former differently by including in the eligible costs the costs arising from job creation for both regional investment aid, each job created to be  maintained in the recipient area for at least five years, or at least three years in the case of SMEs (Article 14), and for investment aid to SMEs for which employment must be created within three years of completion of the investment, there must be a net increase in the number of employees in the establishment concerned in the following year, and the jobs must be maintained during a minimum period of three years (Article 17).

The conditions of compatibility of employment aid for disadvantaged and disabled workers are fixed in Articles 32 through 35 of Regulation No 651/2014. Aid for the recruitment of disadvantaged workers in the form of wage subsidies cannot exceed 50% of the eligible costs (Article 32) . Any person who (i) has not been in regular paid employment for the previous six months; or (ii) has not attained an upper secondary educational or vocational qualification; or (iii) is over the age of 50 years; or (iv) lives as a single adult with one or more dependents; or (v) works in a sector or profession in a Member State where the gender imbalance is at least 25% higher than the average gender imbalance across all economic sectors in that Member State, and belongs to the underrepresented gender group; or (vi) is a member of an ethnic minority within a Member State and who requires development of his or her linguistic, vocational training or work experience profile to enhance prospects of gaining access to stable employment, may be classified as disadvantaged worker. A worker may also be severely disadvantaged where he or she has been unemployed for 24 months or more (Article 2). The recruitment must represent a net increase, compared with the average over the previous twelve months, in the number of employees hired. Otherwise, vacant posts must correspond to voluntary departure, disability, retirement, voluntary reduction in working time or lawful dismissal for misconduct, but not redundancy. If the period of employment of the disadvantaged worker is shorter than 12 or 24 months, the aid will be reduced pro rata accordingly. The aid can also be in the form of compensation for the costs of assistance provided to disadvantaged workers (Article 35). The aid intensity must not exceed 50 % of the eligible costs, which cover the costs of employing staff solely for time spent on the assistance of the disadvantaged workers over a maximum period of 12 months following recruitment of a disadvantaged worker or over a maximum period of 24 months following recruitment of a severely disadvantaged worker and the costs of training such staff for that task.

Aid for the employment of disabled workers may take two forms: wage subsidies or compensation for the additional costs of employing disabled workers. The first one is exempt, provided it does not exceed 75% of the eligible costs (Article 33), and the second may reach 100% of those costs (Article 34) . Disabled worker means any person recognized as disabled under national law or having a recognized limitation which results from physical, mental or psychological impairment.

Case C-310/99 Italy v Commission [2002] ECR I-2289, LawLex200500004848JBJ.

Point 37 of the regulation indicates that in order to favor the "capital" factor of an investment over the "labor" factor, provision should be made for the possibility of measuring aid to investment in favor of SMEs and regional aid on the basis of either the costs of the investment or the costs of employment directly created by an investment project.

Eligible costs correspond to the wage costs over a maximum period of 12 months following recruitment or 24 months where the worker concerned is a severely disadvantaged worker.

Eligible costs correspond to wage costs over the period during which the disabled worker is being employed or costs other than wage costs, immediately connected with the reception of disabled staff: costs of adapting premises; costs of employing staff for time spend solely on the assistance of the disabled workers; costs of adapting or acquiring equipment; costs of constructing, installing or expanding the establishment concerned; costs of administration and transport.

414. Definition and conditions of granting