While the COVID-19 outbreak is a severe public health emergency for citizens and societies, it also poses the risk of a serious downturn in the economy, affecting businesses, jobs, and households.

In these exceptional circumstances, undertakings of all kinds may face a sudden shortage or even unavailability of liquidity, may suffer damages directly caused by the measures taken to tame the spread of the virus, or may struggle to preserve the continuity of economic activity during and after the outbreak.

Given the limited size of the EU budget, the main financial support comes from Member States’ national budgets Therefore, undertakings seeking to benefit from financial support offered by a Member State will need to do so mainly through processes set out by the relevant national authorities.

However, under EU rules, any public intervention from Member States that provides a selective advantage to one or more companies and may distort competition and trade within the EU single market qualifies as State aid and it is prohibited unless specifically authorized by the European Commission (EC).