Continuing Education and Training and the EU Framework on State Aid
Implications for the Public Higher Education Sector in Brandenburg
Ageing populations and rising skill demands have heightened expectations that higher
education systems will widen their offer of continuing education and training (CET)
for adults aiming to renew or augment their skills at an advanced level. CET is becoming
increasingly important for maintaining a highly skilled workforce also in Germany,
and particularly in the state of Brandenburg. However, Brandenburg’s public higher
education institutions have so far been only marginal providers. To expand their offer
of CET, they would require more legal certainty about the use of public funding in
light of European Union (EU) state aid policy. EU state aid policy ensures public
subsidies (state aid) are not used by state agencies to crowd out markets (economic
activity). There are no clear EU, federal or state-level directions about whether
CET is a non-economic activity and thus exempt from EU state aid rules. This report
analyses the reasons for this legal uncertainty and provides recommendations to the
state government and public higher education institutions in Brandenburg about how
to clarify the status of continuing education and training as a state-aided activity.
It also proposes pointers for interpretation and future reform of the EU framework
on state aid, and provides impulses for policy action in other German states and at
the federal level.
Published on April 25, 2022Also available in: German
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