State Aid and the Green Transition

In recent years, public subsidies in the European Union have undergone a profound transformation. State aid is no longer viewed merely as an exceptional market intervention, but increasingly as a structural instrument for delivering the European Green Deal objectives. This book asks whether that shift has produced genuine changes in the design and use of public support, or whether it remains largely rhetorical. It addresses three central questions: why EU State aid policy has moved towards environmental objectives; whether rules presented as “green” genuinely incorporate environmental requirement; and how those rules are applied in practice by Member States. Combining doctrinal analysis with comparative and empirical evidence from Germany, Italy and Poland, the book confronts legal and policy assumptions with actual decision-making and implementation. Its central contribution is the Green Sustainability Matrix, an original framework for assessing whether State aid legal framework is environmentally sustainable in substance rather than in name only. Applied to both EU-level rules and national practice, the Matrix also provides a basis for concrete proposals for future reform. The book offers a systematic and critical account for academics, policymakers, public authorities and practitioners involved in financing the green transition.