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

This category of aid was included in subparagraph d) of Article 107(3) TFEU when the Treaty of Maastricht was adopted . The exemption cannot apply to aid measures that were unlawful before its entry into force on 1 November 1993 . State aid granted to an export agent of French-language books for the handling of small orders is compatible with the internal market as it pursues a genuine cultural ob …

Conditions of granting

This category of aid was included in subparagraph d) of Article 107(3) TFEU when the Treaty of Maastricht was adopted . The exemption cannot apply to aid measures that were unlawful before its entry into force on 1 November 1993 . State aid granted to an export agent of French-language books for the handling of small orders is compatible with the internal market as it pursues a genuine cultural objective and is used solely to finance the additional costs related to those orders . The same goes for operating grants awarded to French export agents in order to favor the dissemination of French literature to countries where demand is irregular  or for tax credit in favor of video game publishers .

Under Block Exemption Regulation No 651/2014, aid for culture and heritage conservation does not typically give rise to any significant distortion of competition and has limited effects on trade between Member States. The regulation provides an extensive definition of heritage which includes natural heritage linked to cultural heritage or formally recognized by the competent public authorities of a Member State. Article 53 of the regulation sets out in detail the objectives and activities in respect of which aid for culture may be granted. Included are museums, libraries, artistic and cultural centers or spaces, tangible and intangible heritage, cultural and artistic education activities, writing, editing etc. The block exemption applies to both to investment aid and operating aid below the thresholds set out. The following are excluded from exemption relating to the promotion of culture: aid to press and magazines (whether published in print or electronically), and commercial activities which are basically commercial  such as fashion, design or video games. For investment the amount of the aid must not exceed the difference between the eligible costs  and the operating profit of the investment which is deducted from the eligible costs ex ante  on the basis of reasonable projections or through a claw-back mechanism. For operating aid , the aid amount must not exceed what is necessary to cover the operating losses and a reasonable profit over the relevant period . For aid not exceeding EUR 1 million, the maximum amount of aid may be set, alternatively to those methods, at 80% of eligible costs. For publishing of music and literature, the maximum aid amount is limited to 70% of the eligible costs.

The regulation gives a special treatment to audiovisual works. According to the Commission, the important role of such works in shaping European identities, the fragmentation of the market, high investment cost and difficulties to generate additional private funding justify the development of specific criteria to assess the necessity, proportionality and adequacy of aid to script-writing, development, production, distribution and promotion of audiovisual works. Under Article 54, aid can be in the form of aid to the production of audiovisual works, pre-production aid and distribution aid. Member States may make the aid subject to territorial spending obligations. They may require that up to 160% of the aid granted be spent in the territory of the Member State granting the aid or calculate the aid granted to the production of a given audiovisual work as a percentage of the expenditure on production activities in that Member State. In both cases, the minimum level of production activity in the territory concerned for projects to be eligible for aid must not exceed 50% of the overall production budget . The aid intensity for the production of audiovisual works must not exceed 50% of the eligible costs  and may be increased to 60% of the eligible costs for cross-border productions funded by more than one Member State and to 100% of the eligible costs for difficult audiovisual works and co-productions involving countries from the Development Assistance Committee List of the OECD. Aid is not reserved exclusively for nationals and beneficiaries are not required to have the status of undertaking established under national commercial law.

Consequently, it does not apply to aid measures that were unlawful before its entry into force, i.e. on 1 November 1993; Case T-348/04 SIDE v Commission [2008] ECR II-625, LawLex200800001086JBJ.

Case T-348/04 SIDE v Commission [2008] ECR II-625, LawLex200800001086JBJ.

Commission Decision No 1999/133/EC of 10 June 1998, Aid in favour of Coopérative d'exportation du livre français (CELF), LawLex200500004739JBJ.

Commission Decision No 2005/262/EC of 20 April 2004, Coopérative d'exportation du livre français (CELF), LawLex200900000061JBJ. The decision was however annulled on the ground that the costs offset by the aid had been overestimated by the Commission, Case T-348/04 SIDE v Commission [2008] ECR II-625, LawLex200800001086JBJ.

Commission Decision No 2008/354/EC of 11 December 2007, Tax credit introduced by France for the creation of video games, LawLex200900000059JBJ: Its conditions of granting must rely upon verifiable national criteria guaranteeing that the content of video games eligible is truly cultural.

Namely: costs for the construction, upgrade, acquisition, conservation or improvement of infrastructure, costs for the acquisition, safeguarding, preservation, restoration and rehabilitation of of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, costs for improving the accessibility of cultural heritage to the public, costs for cultural projects and activities, cooperation and exchange programmes and grants.

The eligible costs are the cultural institution's or heritage site's costs linked to continuous or periodic activities, costs of cultural and artistic education activities as well as promotion of the understanding of the importance of protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions through educational and greater public awareness programs, costs of the improvement of public access to the cultural institution or heritage sites, operating costs directly relating to the cultural project or activity, costs for personnel and costs for advisory and support services provided by outside consultants and service providers.

The calculation is made ex ante on the basis of reasonable projections or through a claw-back mechanism.

In addition, the maximum expenditure subject to territorial spending obligations shall in no case exceed 80 % of the overall production budget.

For production aid: the overall costs of production of audiovisual works; for pre-production aid: the costs of script-writing and the development of audiovisual works; for distribution aid: the costs of distribution and promotion of audiovisual works.

European Competition Law

420. Conditions of granting

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

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420. Conditions of granting

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Les notions juridiques connexes

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au contenu exclusif Livv – juristes d’entreprise