116 COMPETITION LAW IN TOURISM and foreseeable and are also tying the hands of the Commission16. Once the Commission adopts guidelines on the compatibility conditions of certain type of aid, it cannot declare an aid measure as incompatible if the conditions defined in the guidelines are met. Although, the State aid soft law adopted by the Commission is not directly obligatory for the Member States17, indirectly, it has a significant impact when the Member States define their future aid measures. Obviously, the Member States take the guidelines as the measure’s blueprint when designing measures before the notification; besides, they can still notify draft measures assessed directly under the TFEU. Nonetheless, in case a guideline is adopted for that specific type of aid, the Commission will apply it, and a more open assessment remains only for the cases not covered by the guidelines18. 3. THE STATE AID JURISPRUDENCE RELATED TO THE TOURISM SECTOR Albeit, there are no tourism-specific State aid rules, one can find a handful of judgments related to undertakings active in this sector, more specifically related to hotels. The judgments summarised below19 can give an excellent overview regarding how EU courts interpret State aid law. These judgments encompass the concept of aid, the compatibility assessment of the Commission, the application of the general block exemption regulation and the consequence of illegal and incompatible aid, namely recovery. 3.1. Touristic services and services of general economic interest, the SNCM case The State aid rules on the compatibility of public compensation for services of general economic interest (SGEI) give broad freedom to establish what services constitute SGEI20 and how to finance them21. For these reasons, it is not 16 See the judgment in case C-526/14 Tadej Kotnik and Others v Državni zbor Republike Slovenije (ECLI:EU:C:2016:570). 17 See the order of the President of the General Court in case T-694/14 European Renewable Energies Federation (EREF) v European Commission (ECLI:EU:T:2015:915). 18 In those cases, the Commission would most probably assess the compatibility of the aid under Article 107(3) (c) TFEU. 19 The article only summarises the most relevant parts of the judgments. 20 Communication from the Commission on the application of the European Union State aid rules to compensation granted for the provision of services of general economic interest (OJ C 8, 11.01.2012, pp. 4-14.). Hereinafter the SGEI notice. 21 See the judgment in case T-219/14 Regione autonoma della Sardegna v European Commission (ECLI:EU:T:2017:266), paragraph 101.
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