Bank State Aid In The Financial Crisis: Fragmentation Or Level Playing Field?

The financial crisis has posed an enormous challenge for the EU's state aid regime. Conceived to ensure a level playing field in the single market, the scheme also had to show that it could be adapted to exceptional circumstances. The size and nature of the aid, the number of the schemes and the complexity of the cases that had to be examined and approved were overwhelming. Although some high-profile cases of bank state aid had been dealt with by the European Commission in the past, never in the EU's half-century of history had the European Commission dealt with so many cases in such a short period of time.