Introduction
Regional State aid (RSA) is presented by the European Commission as one of the main tools of cohesion policy. It allows Member States, by way of derogation from the general principle of the incompatibility of state aid with the internal market laid down in Article 107(1) of the TFEU, to grant public support to undertakings located in disadvantaged geographical areas. The stated objective is to reduce development disparities between European regions, the term ‘region’ being understood here as a geographical area rather than as a local authority or sub-state entity.
This objective is legitimate. However, viewed through the prism of the regions themselves (in the sense of local authorities) — and not solely through the lens of the internal market, which this regime is primarily designed to protect — the RSA system reveals deep-seated structural tensions. The ongoing review, initiated by the call for contributions published on 23 February 2026 (ref. Ares(2026)2006626), provides an opportunity to examine these tensions, between competitive logic and the ambition for cohesion, between apparent technicality and fundamental political choices.
1. An instrument of cohesion serving the market: the ambiguities of the legal framework
1.1 A strictly regulated derogation: regions under EU supervision
The RSAs are based on the derogations provided for in Article 107(3)(a) and (c) of the TFEU (which concern ‘a’ areas and ‘c’ areas). In primary law, these provisions confer broad discretionary powers on the Commission. In practice, they have given rise to an increasingly dense body of regulations, of which the Guidelines on State aid for regional purposes (2021/C 153/01) are one of the most recent examples.
What is striking, from the perspective of the regions (in the sense of local authorities), is the profoundly centralised nature of this system. The definition of eligibility criteria for beneficiary areas — so-called ‘a’ areas (regions with an abnormally low standard of living or serious underemployment, including the outermost regions referred to in Article 349 of the TFEU) and so-called ‘c’ areas (areas defined on the basis of socio-economic criteria and the discretionary margins left to Member States)) — falls within the exclusive competence of the Union. Thus, as the Commission itself states in the call for contributions, ‘the principle of subsidiarity does not apply’. This exclusion, legally based on Article 3 of the TFEU, means in practice that Member States, and consequently the regions, have no say in defining the rules concerning the eligibility criteria for regions. Furthermore, the rules currently in force stipulate that it is the Member State that notifies the map to the Commission; the region is not a party to this procedure from the perspective of European law.
This institutional framework raises a fundamental question: can the RSA policy truly be considered a regional policy when the regions are the theoretical beneficiaries but not the actors in their own classification? The answer is nuanced and must be sought at both Member State and European Union level. Some Member States, in their notifications, grant regional authorities genuine discretion; others centralise the process entirely, reducing the region to the status of a statistical entity. As for the European Union level, a more formal and earlier involvement of the authorities and the Committee of the Regions would be desirable. This is all the more so given that the opinion of the Committee of the Regions is provided for in the process of adopting regulations concerning economic, social and territorial cohesion policy. Indeed, it appears that the rules adopted in the context of regional aid have a significant impact on this policy. Thus, although the Treaty does not provide for an opinion from the Committee of the Regions on the adoption of rules concerning State aid, such an opinion seems appropriate when these rules have an impact on territorial cohesion policy.
1.2 The mechanics of the maps: a statistical rationale that overrides territorial realities
The zoning method combines an objective statistical criterion (GDP per capita at NUTS 2 level) for ‘a’ zones, and a range of flexible socio-economic criteria for ‘c’ zones, all subject to an overall coverage ceiling and continuity rules. It aims to concentrate aid on the most disadvantaged territories whilst leaving Member States a limited scope for discretionary designation.
Section 7 of the 2021 guidelines defines the eligibility criteria for assisted areas based on Eurostat data: GDP per capita at purchasing power parity and unemployment rate, primarily aggregated at NUTS 2 level (the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics is a hierarchical system of geographical classification created by Eurostat to standardise the collection and comparison of statistical data across the European Union). NUTS 2 is the level of administrative units comprising between 800,000 and 3 million inhabitants (e.g. provinces in Belgium, regions in France and Italy, etc.).
For the period 2022–2027, the maximum population coverage for ‘a’ and ‘c’ areas has been set at 48%, with aid intensities varying by area and increased for SMEs, border areas and just transition areas.
It should be noted that this figure corresponds to the Union’s maximum overall budget, not to a rate applicable to each Member State.
According to the guidelines, Member States may designate the following areas as ‘a’ areas (the most disadvantaged regions of the Union, for which tolerance of distortions of competition is highest):
1) NUTS 2 regions where GDP per capita in purchasing power standards is less than or equal to 75% of the EU-27 average (based on the average of the last three years for which Eurostat data are available);
2) the outermost regions.
‘C’ areas are subdivided into two sub-categories: predefined areas (which may be designated without specific justification) and non-predefined areas (which may be designated on socio-economic grounds, according to five alternative criteria). The maximum ‘c’ coverage is obtained by subtraction: total coverage (48%) minus the population of eligible ‘a’ zones. The distribution of coverage for non-predefined ‘c’ zones among Member States is calculated using a specific formula.
This system has an apparent strength, but also a major limitation. By relying on aggregated data at NUTS 2 level (administrative units generally comprising between 800,000 and 3 million inhabitants), it obscures sub-regional disparities, which are sometimes very pronounced. For example, a prosperous metropolitan area and its declining hinterland may thus fall within the same statistical entity, with well-documented adverse effects: certain genuinely disadvantaged areas are excluded from the zoning because their NUTS 2 region exceeds the statistical thresholds, even though their local indicators would justify inclusion. Conversely, dynamic peri-urban areas continue to receive aid, whilst their actual need is questionable. This observation is consistent with the analyses of the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) in its study *The Future of EU Cohesion: Scenarios and their Impacts on Regional Inequalities* (2024) and the European Commission’s 9th Report on Economic, Social and Territorial Cohesion (2024), which help to highlight the limitations of NUTS 2 zoning in the face of sub-regional disparities.
Admittedly, Member States may designate NUTS 3 regions (administrative units with between 150,000 and 800,000 inhabitants), or even parts of NUTS 3 regions, but only in exceptional cases for ‘c’ zones. Thus, the NUTS 2 constraint applies to a large part of the territory covered by the RSAs. It is only in a smaller part of the territory covered by the RSAs that Member States have some leeway to designate the municipalities/districts receiving support within the population ceiling. In reality, it is only in the non-predefined ‘c’ zones that there is genuine flexibility, but this is strictly limited by the small population ‘quota’ allocated to each Member State.
The authorised aid — for example, direct grants, subsidised loans, guarantees, tax or social security exemptions — is conditional on initial investment and job creation. This approach of incentivising private investment is relevant in many contexts; however, it is less suited to regions where the central problem is the weakness of the existing productive fabric, the exodus of the working population or infrastructure deficits, which fall under the remit of other instruments — Structural Funds, ERDF — whose coordination with the RSAs remains imperfectly resolved in practice.
To illustrate these tensions, let us take the example of the province of Hainaut (Belgium), a NUTS 2 region. For the period 2022–2023, the Commission had approved, in the initial Belgian map, the designation of several non-predefined ‘c’ zones within this province, based on GDP and unemployment criteria. However, at the mid-term review, Eurostat data for the 2019–2021 period showed that the per capita GDP of the Province of Hainaut had fallen to 74.33% of the EU-27 average, thereby crossing the 75% threshold entitling it to ‘a’ zone status. The province has therefore been reclassified in its entirety as a ‘Zone A’ for the 2024–2027 period, with the maximum aid intensity raised to 30% for large enterprises. This example illustrates how an approach based on aggregated data at NUTS 2 level can lead to counterintuitive results: municipalities with very different economic dynamics — industrial areas undergoing profound restructuring such as Charleroi or La Louvière, and less disadvantaged areas — find themselves subject to the same aid regime, with a uniform intensity that does not necessarily reflect the differentiated needs of sub-regional territories. The same observation applies, conversely, to the province of Luxembourg, designated as an ‘a’ zone from 2022 with a per capita GDP at 73% of the EU-27 average: municipalities with very distinct profiles there benefit from an identical aid intensity, without the RSA framework allowing for systematic sub-NUTS 2 modulation. These Belgian examples thus highlight the risk that an overly aggregated approach, centred on the NUTS 2 level, may reduce the effectiveness of the RSAs in terms of the objective of territorial cohesion.
2. The 2028–2034 revision: a technical reform with underestimated political implications
2.1 The ‘technical’ classification of the initiative: a questionable choice
In its call for contributions, the Commission explicitly classifies the initiative to revise the 2028–2034 map as a ‘technical amendment’, which, according to the rules on better regulation, justifies the absence of an impact assessment. The argument put forward is that ‘the method for calculating coverage and the criteria for designating eligible areas […] remain unchanged’, with only the statistical data being updated.
This characterisation merits discussion. An update of socio-economic data can produce significant redistributive effects between Member States and between regions: areas falling out of the scheme lose the possibility of receiving aid, whilst areas entering the scheme acquire new rights. The issue is therefore not purely statistical; it is economic, social and political. However, a technical amendment ‘without an impact assessment’ specifically exempts the institution from the obligation to evaluate these effects in a formalised manner, and thus to make them publicly enforceable.
Furthermore, the decision to maintain the scope of coverage (calculation of the total population) and the designation criteria as they stand is itself a political choice. It would have been possible to reassess whether the NUTS 2 level is still the most relevant scale, or whether the criteria selected adequately capture new forms of regional vulnerability — demographic decline, industrial transitions, the impact of climate change. This failure to reassess is not neutral.
2.2 The consultation procedure: formal openness, limited real influence?
The consultation strategy adopted by the Commission comprises two parts: a four-week open call for contributions on the ‘Have your say’ portal, followed by an eight-week targeted consultation on the draft communication. The timetable is tight: the communication is scheduled for adoption in the fourth quarter of 2026, to allow Member States a reasonable period to notify their maps before 1 January 2028.
The procedure is formally open to all stakeholders — national and regional authorities, businesses, associations, NGOs, researchers — and responses are accepted in the 24 official languages of the Union. However, two factors call for caution. Firstly, the window for contributing to the call for contributions (four weeks) is short for regional stakeholders, who do not always have the resources to quickly formulate complex positions. Secondly, as the scope of the review is defined ex ante as ‘technical’, the scope for real influence on fundamental decisions — level of statistical aggregation, overall coverage ceiling, weighting of indicators — appears limited. Stakeholders are being consulted on a review whose key parameters have already been set.
The role of the regions in this process also merits scrutiny. Whilst they are included among those consulted, it is as stakeholders alongside others, and not as institutional actors with a right of initiative or a right of veto (which would, however, be too great a power, risking a deadlock in the decision-making process). The Committee of the Regions, for its part, is not explicitly involved in this consultation phase, although its opinion may be sought at later stages.
2.3 Redistributive issues and consistency with other European policies
The updating of Eurostat data will inevitably produce redistributive effects between regions and between Member States. Whilst the per capita GDP of certain regions in Central and Eastern Europe has partially caught up with the European average since the last reference statistics, it is possible that areas hitherto classified as ‘zone A’ may shift to ‘zone C’, or even fall outside the scheme. Conversely, regions in Western Europe affected by deindustrialisation could become eligible. These decisions, presented as the automatic consequence of the statistical update, in reality reflect political choices, as they depend on the reference period selected for the data and the level of geographical aggregation.
More fundamentally, the revision of the RSA map is taking place against a European backdrop marked by major structural transformations: the energy and digital transitions, the uneven impacts of climate change, and the reorganisation of global value chains. These phenomena give rise to new forms of regional vulnerability that cannot be reduced to traditional indicators such as GDP and unemployment. The question of how to coordinate the RSAs, the Structural Funds, the Just Transition Fund and the new industrial policy tools — notably those under the STEP Regulation or the InvestEU programme — remains insufficiently resolved. The risk of redundancy or, worse, of contradiction between these instruments remains real in the absence of an integrated territorial strategy.
Conclusion
The revision of the RDF map for 2028–2034 illustrates a tension inherent in the European state aid system: that between a legal framework designed primarily to protect competition in the internal market, and an ambition for territorial cohesion which, for its part, requires a proactive approach in favour of disadvantaged territories. This tension cannot be resolved by the technical nature of statistical criteria alone.
From the regions’ perspective, three steps forward would be desirable. Firstly, a review of the appropriate level of statistical aggregation, so as not to obscure the sub-regional disparities that the system is intended to address. Secondly, a more formal and earlier involvement of regional authorities and the Committee of the Regions in the revision process. Thirdly, an impact assessment — even a simplified one — on the redistributive effects of the proposed statistical changes, which would bring transparency to trade-offs currently presented as automatic.
Adherence to the procedural timetable — adoption of the communication in Q4 2026, approval of the maps before 1 January 2028 — is necessary to avoid any legal vacuum. However, this cannot justify prioritising speed of implementation over the quality of the debate. The European regions, as the parties most directly affected, have a legitimate say in the matter.
