Competition Law and Trade in Energy vs. Sustainable Development : A Clash of Individualism and Cooperative Partnerships?

At first sight the potential discrepancy between competitive behavior of market participants, trade rules and the basic notion of sustainable development may seem to be of a negligible importance. However, during the interactions of market processes with sustainability goals through various levels of support, provided by public or private entities problems arise, even more so in the light of the commitments of the Paris Agreement, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and corporate social responsibility principles. This Article aims to address the most obvious overlappings between these areas under the coverage of legal provisions regulating the grant of state aid, subsidies and policies related to mutual cooperation of private subjects towards achieving sustainability. The purpose is to draw conclusions regarding the criteria taken into consideration during the evaluation of competition distorting behaviors in case of environmental and sustainable energy state aid, subsidy- and contract-based cooperation and coalitions among private entities