The Legal Impacts of COVID-19 in the Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Industry

9 aid soft law adopted by the Commission is not directly obligatory for the Member States 30 , indirectly, it has a significant impact when the Member States define their future aid measures. Obviously, the Member States take the guidelines as the measure’s blueprint when designing their measures before the notification; besides, they can still notify draft measures assessed directly under the TFEU. Nonetheless, if a guideline is adopted for that specific type of aid, the Commission will apply it, and a more open assessment remains only for the cases not covered by the guidelines 31 . 3. The Commission’s First Reactions to the COVID-19 Outbreak from a State Aid Aspect When the first news about the appearance of COVID-19 hit the media across Europe in January-February 2020, nobody could predict how severe the situation would be within a couple of weeks. The situation escalated quickly and Member States introduced curfew measures. The European Commission as the guardian of the European Treaties and the authority responsible for controlling the Member States’ State aid policy has issued its first general document about how to handle the COVID-19 outbreak on 13 March. 32 As the Commission always strives to keep the spending of State aid within limits, it is not surprising that in this communication the Commission put emphasis on the then existing State aid legal framework, and explained how those rules can be best used to fight against the impact of COVID-19. It acknowledged that the effects on tourism and related economic activities (event sectors, catering etc.) are unprecedented and coordinated reaction is needed both at EU and at international level. The pressure and negative impact on the banking sector as well as the expected consequences on credit flows and debt services were also mentioned in the document. The communication explained how different the economic impact of COVID-19 is 33 from for instance the previous economic crisis, but it was very optimistic by saying that “[T]he 30 See the order of the President of the General Court in case T-694/14 European Renewable Energies Federation (EREF) v European Commission (ECLI:EU:T:2015:915). 31 In those cases, the Commission would most probably assess the compatibility of the aid under Article 107(3)(c) TFEU. 32 Source: https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/communication-coordinated-economic-response- covid19-march-2020_en.pdf ( accessed on 10 March 2020). 33 Causing demand and supply side socks and liquidity shortage at the same side.