(Finance) – The relations between industrial policy and state aid and diplomatic relations in Europe and internationally, in particular between the United States and Europe, the comparisons with the provisions of other countries such as the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) , the orientation of institutions and the market. These are the themes at the center of the debate between scholars, jurists and institutional representatives at the meeting entitled “Industrial policy and state aid today”, promoted by the Center for American Studiesdirected by Robert Sgalla.
An extremely topical issue that influences the real economy and competitiveness and which closely concerns Italy, the third country in Europe by value of aid after France and Germany: 51 billion euros have been disbursed, equal to 7.6% of the total .
After the greetings of Director Sgalla and the introduction of Julian Amato, President Emeritus of the Constitutional Court, Andrea Zoppini, Full Professor of Civil Law at Roma Tre, spoke on the theme “New capitalism and state intervention”, professors Francesco De Carolis (Bocconi University) and Daniele Gallo (Luiss) on “Public financing of the US economy: the Inflation Reduction Act” and “Extra-EU foreign subsidies and direct investment”. Among the speakers also Giovanni Pitruzzella, constitutional lawyer and advocate general of the Court of Justice of the European Union, who spoke on the subject of “Regulation of state aid”.
After the initial speeches, a round table with the MEF Undersecretary of State followed Federico Frenithe Chief Executive Officer of Invitalia Bernardo Mattarella and the general manager of Assonime Stephen Firpo.
“The relationship between industrial policy and state aid is very much alive. In the recent past, unfortunately also due to dramatic events, Italy was one of the countries to have made the most use of derogations from the ban on state aid. However, it is important that this situation does not become a rule,” he stressed Brakesadding “abusing state aid to increase the competitiveness of European industry risks weakening the single market, creating large gaps between member states, and triggering a trade war between the US and the EU with unpredictable consequences”.
For Zoppini “the political choice that the European Union is making lays the foundations for a profound rethinking, in Europe, of the relationship between law and the market and between public and private, as demonstrated by the many measures aimed at relativizing the ban on state aid, for start with the Temporary Framework of March 2020, the Foreign Direct Investment Regulation of 2019 and the Foreign Subsidies Regulation of 2022”. “The notifications made by the States, in the last three years, regarding the loans disbursed to a plurality of companies – he underlined – have almost always led the Commission to declare their compatibility with EU law. De facto, a generalized suspension of the ban of state aid”.