13.2.2 Has the Commission consistently taken into account this relevant characteristic?

In almost any Commission decision, the aid amount is indicated.1 However, in some decisions, the amount of aid is only mentioned in the context of the existence of State aid, rather than in relation to the need for compensatory measures. For instance, the decision on IL&P2 indicates that the recapitalisation constituted nearly 18% of the bank’s RWA, but the Commission did not refer to the aid amount when it assessed the measures limiting the distortions of competition.3 Thus, in some cases, the (relative) amount of aid is not explicitly used as an assessment criterion. However, the fact that in those cases, the aid amount is not used to substantiate the need for compensatory measures does not preclude the fact that it may have been used to assess the need for compensatory measures. And given the fact that the aid amount is – also intuitively – a very important assessment criterion, it is likely that the Commission has used this criterion in every case.