EU subsidy race is on – and Germany is winning it

“The problem here is that the relaxed state aid rules benefit countries like Germany that have low public debt and can afford to lavish subsidies,” Zach Meyers, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform (CER), a think-tank, told Euractiv.

“These subsidies risk wasting public funds by promoting a subsidy race within the EU, and distorts competition by encouraging investment to move within the EU to areas where more subsidy is available, rather than where the investment would be most efficient,” he added, warning of significant risks to market fragmentation – more so than ever before.