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The Grand Chamber’s September 2020 judgment in Austria v European Commission (Hinkley Point C) has been interpreted by some as supporting a strengthening of the rules on environmental State aid, and by others as achieving the opposite. At issue was the 2014 Commission decision authorising aid granted to the UK for the construction and development of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, the first new nuclear power station to be built in the UK for over 20 years. The matter goes to the core of the European Green Deal, the European Commission’s flagship initiative which seeks a radical transformation of the EU’s economic model “where there are no net emissions of greenhouse gases in 2050 and where economic growth is decoupled from resource use”. This article considers the judgment’s implications for State aid law and the European Green Deal, and concludes that, overall, it represents a significant step forward in achieving real integration of the EU’s State aid and environmental rules.
