Report from the Commission on competition policy 2010. Commission staff working document accompanying the report.

Abstract

Since the beginning of the global financial crisis in the autumn of 2008, the Commission has issued four Communications which provided detailed guidance on the criteria for the compatibility with the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) of temporary crisis-related support for financial institutions1. The first three of these Communications set out the criteria for compatibility of State support in the form of State guarantees, recapitalisations and asset relief measures. The fourth addressed the follow-up to such support measures. Through the application of State aid rules, the Commission ensured that distortions of competition within the internal market were limited to a minimum despite the important amounts of State aid and that beneficiary banks were restructured when necessary.