440 COMPETITION LAW IN TOURISM recommendations, the Government launched an international public tender. But the PCA considered acute to issue the second set, addressing specifically several features of the tender procedure and following a complaint by a private party. E. THE PARADIGM SHIFT WITH THE OUTBREAK OF COVID-19 In the context of the COVID-19 crisis, we assisted to a shift of the paradigm underlying the factors influencing competition in the economy (including the tourism sector) as a result notably due to EU and the Member States’ strategies to combat COVID 19 pandemic and economic crisis which inevitably impacted heavily on the tourism industry in the EU as a whole. Even as regards the exercise of the EU’s exclusive competence concerning competition, the European Commission’s initial willingness to provide “full flexibility” to Member States so as to swiftly respond to the crisis had consequences beyond what one could expect. More precisely, on 13 March 2020 the European Commission presented a coordinated response to mitigate the socioeconomic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. The Commission informed that it would use all instruments available “to mitigate the consequences of the pandemic, in particular: to ensure the necessary supplies to our health systems (…), to support people so that income and jobs are not affected disproportionally (…), to support firms and ensure that liquidity of our financial sector can continue to support economy, and to allow Member States to act decisively in a coordinated way, through using the full flexibility of our State Aid and Stability and Growth Pact Frameworks”66 . The Commission recognised by then that the main response should come from Member States’ budgets, which allowed the latter to support the economy and make generally applicable changes on businesses. Examples of measures are the subsidisation of short-time work (trying to avoid lay-off measures), deferral of taxes, compensation to companies for damages suffered due to the coronavirus outbreak, moratorium periods and a special regime for services of a general economic interest. The breadth of the national budgets has inevitably encompassed distortions to competition, considering that several Member States have the financial resources to adopt wider range measures, comprising higher investments on 66 Press release available at: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_459.
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