The  EU  environmental  and  energy  aid  guidelines have been  fundamentally  revised  and  extended.

In the programming period 2014-2020 the focus is more than ever on investments in sustainable energy in order to achieve the EU2020 targets: The shift towards a low-carbon economy in all sectors as well as a strong emphasis on renewable energy (RE) and energy efficiency (EE), resulting in almost a doubling of investment amounts in sustainable energy over ;

Compliance with EU State aid rules is of crucial importance and still remains challenging for State aid practitioners due to their complexity in the field of energy and environment: The revised Environmental and Energy Guidelines (EEAG) have strengthened the authorities’ approach to assess whether State aid exists or is compatible with the EU internal market. Since the scope of the guidelines has been extended to the energy field, it now includes measures related to energy infrastructure projects, generation adequacy measures and energy intensive users. Furthermore, the General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER), by which a huge number of measures are covered, has considerably been altered.