ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the European Union's (EU) Competition Directorate's approach concerning the State Aid mechanism application with regard to the Member States who used public subsidies for digital switchover. Further, because of the general economic malaise that has affected the EU since the Banking Crisis of 2008, there was acceleration within the processes of digital switchover. The chapter talks about 2005 State Aid Action Plan which commented that Member States could employ State Aid to overcome market failures in the transference from analogue to digital services to ensure social cohesion. It examines how the ideological, regulatory and policy frameworks were utilized to define State Aid decisions in relation to digital switchover cases in Germany, Italy and Spain. The chapter describes how the EU had supported the employment of public finances for switchover in Member States such as Slovakia and how the Competition Directorate realized that the subsidies were necessary in light of Universal Service Obligations (USO) obligations.
