6.4.2 Determining the comparability of the cases

In the previous subsection, the metric ‘harm’ or ‘harmfulness’ was mentioned as an example. However, is this really a good metric? Can State aid cases be compared in terms of the harm that the State aid has caused? Intuitively, such a metric would make sense. State aid is harmful. That is the whole reason why the EU has set up State aid control. The purpose of State aid control is to contain the harmful effects of State aid, either by prohibiting the State aid measures or by requesting restructuring measures. This means that comparing State aid measures in terms of their harmfulness may be meaningful.

On a conceptual level, the harmfulness may thus be a good metric. On a practical level, however, it is somewhat problematic. This is due to the fact that there are different kinds of harm caused by State aid: the distortion of the level playing, moral hazard, the risk of a subsidy race between Member States, the fact that State aid may allow an inefficient firm to stay on the market.1 Some of those harmful effects may be hard to quantify. This makes it even more difficult to add up these harmful effects. In other words: the ‘total amount’ of harm cannot be determined.2 If the total amount of harm cannot be established, then it cannot be established how different the cases are with respect to their harmfulness.