The EU Commission finds that Dutch subsidies for the acquisition of land for nature conservation are compatible with State aid (Nature land)

Nature Conservation as a Service of General Economic Interest* Public funding of non-economic activities does not create State aid problems when any related economic activities are clearly separated. The 2012 SGEI package can apply retroactively. Introduction Member States of the European Union are free to designate the services they consider to be in the general economic interest. However, the wide discretion they enjoy in this respect falls under the scrutiny of the Commission which checks for “manifest error”. It is difficult to know when a Member State commits a manifest error in this context. This is because the concept of manifest error with respect to SGEI has not been defined in the case law. However, from cases where EU courts have agreed with the Commission’s views, we can