A concessão de ajudas públicas até à II.ª Guerra Mundial: fundamentos históricos da sua regulamentação internacional

Public aid always existed in capitalist economies. However, it is only from the sixteenth century that states, following mercantilist doctrines, started using subsidies to manipulate international trade, attracting counteracting reactions (award of grants and imposition of customs duties). Public aid thus became a supranational issue. The international regulation of subsidies started in nineteenth century’s free trade agreements, which contained anti-subsidies clauses that sought to prevent customs liberalisation measures from being defrauded by the grant of subsidies. On the other hand, according to the dominant streak of Economics before WWII, the granting of public aid intended to manipulate international trade is harmful for the economy of granting states and benefits the economy of importing states, except when predatory subsidies are at stake. Export subsidies are also useless for subsidized industries when they generate counteracting reactions from affected states. Thus, export subsidies should be banned internationally and the adoption of countervailing duties by the affected states should be allowed. On the eve of the adoption of universal and regional international rules on public aid, those rules were justified for mercantilist motives and by Economics.