State aid is any direct or indirect advantage granted by the State or through state funds, which distorts or threatens to distort competition by favouring certain companies or manufacturing sectors and thus affecting interstate trade. Among others, these include grants, subsidised loans, and guarantees. If this aid is granted to companies selectively by the State, it can distort competition within Europe. For this reason, state aid is only permitted under strict legal regulations of the EU Commission in exceptional cases. The corresponding legal framework is laid out in Articles 107 to 109 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and numerous regulations. You can find detailed information on this in the links below.
Information by the BMWi - Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy on state aid rules
The following files are a handout by the BMWi on EU State Aid Law. For an initial overview of the state aid relevance, we recommend reading the file "Guidelines and Self-Test".
The necessary funding principles for the implementation of the OP ERDF 2014 - 2020 as well as their implementation must be compatible with the EU state aid law. It needs to be noted that both the COM and the ECA have set the compatibility of the funding projects with the EU state aid rules as the main focus of their audit in the 2014 - 2020 funding period. Therefore, not only the compatibility of the funding basis with the EU state aid law but also - if relevant for the respective project - the compatibility with the EU state aid rules must be plausibly and comprehensively documented by the zgS before the projects are approved. For this reason, if audits must be carried out under EU state aid rules, this must also be documented in the checklists for each individual project. The documentation has to be presented to the VB, the COM, the ECA or the Thuringian Court of Audit upon request.