L'expérience de l'Union Européenne en matière de contrôle des subventions étrangères - quels enseignements pour la Nouvelle Calédonie ?

The ongoing reflection on the openness of New Caledonia's economy and the reconsideration of market protection mechanisms may draw extensively on comparative experiences concerning the justification of public interventions in the presence of market failures or distortions, as well as on an analysis of the current conditions governing international trade. A first line of inquiry relates to the regulation of State aid. Such measures may indeed be regarded as forms of market protection, the necessity, proportionality, and incentive effects of which must be duly assessed. The experience of the European Union, together with the new framework recently established in the United Kingdom, may serve as particularly relevant benchmarks. A second source of reflection stems from the market protection measures enacted by numerous states in recent years, such as the European Union's 2019 regulation on the screening of foreign direct investment and its 2023 regulation on foreign subsidies. The specific relevance of the latter for the present discussion lies in the procedural homogeneity with competition rules it introduces for assessing whether firms applying for the award of public procurement contracts or concessions, or engaged in merger and acquisition operations, benefit from public support that could place them in conditions unattainable for their competitors within a system of competition on the merits. The interest of analyzing these frameworks is both internal and external. On the one hand, they foster a competition-oriented culture, encouraging the evaluation of aid or protective measures in terms of their net effects. On the other hand, they ensure our trading partners that the treatment of their firms is in no way discretionary but rather rests on rules grounded in the pursuit of undistorted competition or on transparent procedures designed to safeguard strategic interests.