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5 Eur. St. Aid L.Q. 669 (2006)
Monitoring State Aid in Poland

handle is hein.journals/estal5 and id is 685 raw text is: MONITORING STATE AID IN POLAND - EStAL 412OO6 669 Monitoring State Aid in Poland Aleksandra Paczkowska 7bmtaszewska, Krzysztof Jaros and Krzysztof Winiarski I. Introduction Poland, the largest of the ten New Member States which joined the EU on i May 2004, still has to cope with various State aid problems in the overall process of transforming the country into a modern European economy with a globally competitive industry. This task is obviously not limited to the lengthy process of restructuring and privatising formerly state owned undertakings such as shipyards, steel plants and car producers, though these cases have thus far definitely received most attention at Community level. Beyond this, whilst competing not only with other EU Member States, Poland faces the challenge of becom ing more attractive for modern investments; in this context, the granting of State aid has always been a powerful tool. A large number of measures implemented at dif ferent levels, ranging from the necessary building and modernisation of public infrastructure to direct subsi dies to undertakings, continue to give rise to concerns about State aid. In the past years, this has allowed the Polish State aid monitoring authority to gain signifi- cant experience when assessing numerous contested cases, and this fresh experience might now be of value for the enforcement of the State Aid Action Plan. Furthermore, taxation issues continue to be a highly problematic topic in State aid terms, and they need to be looked at, particularly regarding the decisions of the fiscal authorities and relevant case law of the courts. The latter is particularly interesting, as it is the only field in which the Polish administrative courts have slowly begun to consider EC State aid rules. Taking all this into account, the aim of this article is to Aleksande Paczkcowsk-Tmaszewska is Deputy Director of the Department of State Aid vonii at the Office of Competition and Con smer Protection (OCCP), Warsaw Krzvsztof jaros is Resident Twinning Adviser (RTA) at the OCCP, Warsaw, Dr. Krzyszof Winiarski i a Judge at the Voivods-ip Administrative Court, Gliwice. All views expressed, as we!! as any errors and oTissions, are strictly those of the authoIs. 1 A first overview of the iole of the national authorities of the new Member States, including Po and, was given in this journal two yeals ago, see Jagod c- LeKoevi/Pe-ka/Vdsu, EStAL 2004, page 375. 2 Europe Agreement Establhing an Association between the European Communities and their Member States on the one par and the Republic of Poland on the other part, signed in Brussels on 16.12.1991, O 1993 L 348/I. 3 Law o' 30.6.2000 on the conditions for admissibility and supervision of State aid for entrepreneurs, Official Journal of Poland No. 60, item 704, as later amended. he Law of 2000 was subsecuently ieplaced by the Law of 277.2002 on the conditions for admis biity and supervision of State aid for entrepreneurs, Official journal of Poland No. 141, item 11/7, as later amended. give an overview of the adopted model of State aid control in Poland after accession. The tasks and prac tices of the national monitoring authority are consid ered and subsequently some of the currently most contested State aid issues in the field of taxation are highlighted. II. State aid monitoring in Poland An overview of the Polish legislation on State aid and the role of the national State aid monitoring authori- tyl would obviously not be complete, nor would the newly introduced amendments be fully understand able to the reader still unfamiliar with the particulari ties of the Polish State aid control system, without first making brief review of the beginnings of State aid control in Poland. i. The situation before accession It is worth recalling that, until the beginning of the 199os, public assistance to the then state-owned undertakings never gave rise to any concerns in terms of having a distortive effect on competition, because at that time the latter simply did not exist. Accordingly 'State aid' as a legal term was unknown in Poland until the conclusion of the European Agreement in 1991, which required the implementation of the acquis com- munautaire in the State aid field. The necessary imple- mentation of the EC State aid rules very soon proved to be quite a difficult task. As in all candidate coun tries from Central and Eastern Europe with former centrally planned economies, a common method of solving problems was to uphold a strong tradition of State intervention and provision of support from pub- lic funds. In Poland, the situation was made even more complicated by the rather slow process of economic transformation which had still not been accomplished by the end of the 199os. Therefore in 2000, on the basis of the law on the conditions for admissibility and supervision of State aid for entrepreneurs, the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (from now on referred to as the OCCP) was appointed as the State aid monitoring authority and was assigned the task of implementing the EC rules on State aid in Polish law. This appointment was, of course, based on the President's existing functions in EURQPEAN STATE AID LAW QUAPTERLY

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