EU Commission facilitates access to environmental justice in state aid cases

The European Commission has adopted a series of changes to its State aid rules to ensure and strengthen public access to justice in environmental matters in relation to EU State aid decisions. In particular, it has updated its rules to allow non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to request the review of certain decisions to assess whether they are in breach of EU environmental law.

These changes follow the 2021 findings of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee, which found the EU in breach of the rules by failing to allow citizens to challenge state aid decisions that may violate environmental law.

In May 2023, the Commission published a Communication with options for following up on these conclusions, and launched a public consultation between July and September 2024. A further consultation took place between February and March 2025, involving Member States, citizens, businesses, associations, environmental NGOs, lawyers and academics.

The Commission also took the opportunity to update other parts of the State aid Implementing Regulation (EC) No 794/2004 and the State aid Best Practices Code .

The review includes the following conditions:

• NGOs that meet certain requirements, including independence, a non-profit purpose related to the request, and proven experience in the environmental sector, may apply .

• Decisions that may be reviewed are final decisions on State aid which conclude a formal investigation pursuant to Article 108(2) TFEU and which declare an aid compatible with the internal market (positive decision), or they authorize it under certain conditions (conditional decision). Decisions taken on the basis of Article 107, paragraph 2 (individual social aid and aid for natural disasters or exceptional occurrences) and Article 107, paragraph 3, letter b) (aid for serious economic disturbances) are excluded.

• The NGO must demonstrate that the financed activity, or an inseparable element of the approved aid measure, infringes one or more specific rules of EU environmental law.

The request must be submitted within 8 weeks of the publication of the decision in the Official Journal, using a form. The Commission will respond within 16 weeks of the deadline for submission, extendable to 22 in justified cases. Requests and replies will be published on a dedicated website.

The Commission's response may be challenged before the Court of Justice of the EU.

Furthermore, the amendment to the Regulation requires Member States to declare, in the aid notification form, that neither the financed activity nor the aid measure infringes EU environmental law.

NGOs will be able to request the review of both final decisions authorising aid notified by Member States, starting from two months after the publication of the amendments in the Official Journal, and decisions relating to non-notified aid, if the initiation of the procedure under Article 108(2) was decided after the publication of the amendments.

In the fourth quarter of 2025 , the Commission will publish guidelines to clarify what is meant by an “ indissoluble link ” between an aid measure and a possible infringement of environmental law.