€1.6 trillion aid to banks between 2008 and 2011
On 21 December, the European Commission announced that €1.6 trillion was granted to European banks between October 2008 and 31 December 2011.
According to the Commission, 2012 State Aid Scoreboard revealed that the volume of national support to the financial sector actually taken by banks between October 2008 and 31 December 2011 amounted approximately to 13 % of EU GDP. The bulk (67 %) of the €1.6 trillion aid came in the form of State guarantees on banks' wholesale funding. In detail, €1,174 trillion were granted to EU banks in order to foster bank’s funding and other short-term liquidity support measures while €442 billion were given in recapitalisation measures and treatment of impaired assets. Only three Member States accounted for nearly 60 per cent of the total state aid (UK, Ireland and Germany).
However, state aid support to companies that were hit by the crisis fell by 50 per cent (€4.8 billion) compared with 2010. According to the press release, the drastic fall reflects both a low uptake by companies and the budgetary constraints of most EU Member States. The main support measure used was a one-off subsidy of up to €500 thousand per company, which was replaced in 2011 by the normal €200 thousand amount that can be granted to a company over three years without prior clearance by the Commission. This was followed by subsidised loan interests or guarantees, reduced interests for environmentally-friendly investments and risk capital aid.
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Last but not least, total non-crisis aid fell at €64.3 billion and it was mainly focused in research and innovation, environmental purposes and providing risk capital to SMEs.
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