Newsletter-21

156 NEWSLETTER 2016 State Aid in Turkish Competition Law* Att. Nilsun Gursoy The period for the entry into force of the regulations on notifi- cation and monitoring of state aid is extended to 31.12.2016 by the Resolution of Council of Ministers 1 . By doing so, the Council of Ministers extended the relevant period for the fourth time. On 22 De- cember 1995, with Decision No. 1/95 of the EC-Turkey Association Council 2 (“Decision No. 1/95”), Turkey undertook to harmonize its legislation on competition law and state aid with the European Union’s legislation in accordance with its duties arising from Customs Unions and the negotiations for full accession to the European Union. Turkey has aligned most of its legislation with European Union antitrust law with the adoption of Law No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition; however, a state aid monitoring system was not introduced for some time. Law No. 6015 on the Monitoring and Control of State Aid (“Law No. 6015”) entered into force through its publication in the Official Gazette on 13.10.2010, yet entry into force of the secondary legisla- tion was regularly postponed. European Commission’s Progress Reports on Turkey regularly underline, under the Competition Policy section, that Turkey does not align its legislation with the European state aid legislation. The 2015 Progress Report states that the entry into force of the regula- tion implementing the state aid law was again postponed, delaying the requirement to notify state aid schemes and measures, and a number of aid schemes breach Turkey’s obligations under the Customs Union 3 . * Article of January 2016 1 The Resolution of Council of Ministers dated 21.12.2015 and numbered 2015/8325 was published in the Official Gazette dated 28.12.2015 and numbered 29576. 2 See: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX :21996D02 13(01):EN:HTML. 3 Turkey 2015 Report, p. 41. See: http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/key_docu-