EU:s statsstödspolitik och det kommunala självstyret

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between EU state aid policy and local self-government. This policy prohibits public authorities on all levels from distorting competition by granting economic support to individual market actors. Over time, it has developed into a complex regulatory framework, making it sometimes difficult to know when and how it becomes applicable. In this article, we tease out the basic principles of state aid regulation from EU policy documents and court cases in order to discuss how it impacts on local authorities, with exam- ples from a Swedish context. We conclude that state aid regulation has placed new restrictions on local self-government, but also opened up new opportunities for action to those who know how to use the framework to their advantage. We point to the need for comparative research on how local governments choose to act within this new framework, in order to understand the effects of state aid policy in the member states.