BLOCK EXEMPTED AID AS AN INSTRUMENT OF STATE AID POLICY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

The subject of the article is an analysis of the rules of state aid admissibility on the basis of the implementing regulations, adopted by the European Commission in 2008 and 2014 on state aid provided under the General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER), which releases Member States from the obligation to notify to the Commission a number of state aid measures. The implementation of the regulation was one of the major components of the reform of the state aid system undertaken by the Commission in the recent years. The thesis taken in the article is based on the statement that in Poland during the financial and economic crisis block exempted aid showed a growing tendency, thereby forming, in addition to provisional measures addressed to enterprises in difficulty, one of the most important factors ensuring financing from the perspective of equity gap occurring in relation to small and medium-sized enterprises.