Mr. Patrick Rochford:

It is a change of tactics. Before, the Commission would state the guidelines. The member state would then say it could comply with them and the Commission would not ask about the aid, unless there was a complaint made against a certain member state or scheme. Across the state aid modernisation initiative, the Commission is getting far more hands-on with auditing aid.

During the Irish EU Presidency, the Commission asked for a review of the procedural regulation. One of the main changes to that is that the Commission can now use market information to perform an audit and ask the beneficiary companies directly. It also has to inform the member state of this action. Prior to that change, the Commission would ask for the information from the member state first and then the member state could choose to talk to the beneficiaries. Now, the Commission can go directly to Kerry Group or Intel, say, because it feels there are problems in their areas.

It also introduced a sectorial inquiry procedure which means it can conduct an inquiry across, say, the car industry or ICT, information and communications technology, if it feels there are problems in those sectors. If there is a state aid case in the national courts system of any member state, the Commission can provide information to that national court because the case law could be altered and not be reflective of state aid rules. These are significant changes and reflect the fact the Commission feels the complaints procedures have not been working the way they should be.