Conference Agenda

Impartiality in data protection decision-making is a core principle of the rule of law and a key procedural guarantee under both EU and Slovenian legal frameworks. While the GDPR establishes robust substantive rights for individuals, its procedural enforcement largely relies on national law, such as the General Administrative Procedure Act and the national Personal Data Protection Act. This layered regulatory model creates institutional ambiguity, particularly concerning the role of Data Protection Officers (DPOs), who are often tasked with both advisory and operational responsibilities. As illustrated by the Slovenian case study, this dual role raises complex questions about functional independence, especially when DPOs decide on data subject requests they have also helped to regulate. The paper combines doctrinal, normative, and empirical methods, including a 2025 survey of DPOs across Slovenian ministries and administrative units, to assess whether existing conflict of interest mechanisms are sufficient in practice. The results reveal that while many DPOs recognise potential bias risks, formal safeguards such as recusal protocols and structural separation are rarely implemented. These findings suggest that impartiality is not undermined by intentional bias but by organisational design, insufficient redundancy, and limited professional awareness. The article argues that addressing these gaps requires no legislative reform, but rather targeted internal governance measures and practical guidance distinguishing strategic from operational tasks. Finally, the analysis contributes to broader European debates on administrative fairness in the context of digitalised governance, where internal institutional roles must be carefully balanced to maintain public trust and ensure effective enforcement of fundamental rights.

Impartiality plays a fundamental role in the debate on the social contract, especially when considering the issue of justice and equity in social and political relations. The concept of social contract, which dates back to philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, proposes that the organization of society is based on an implicit agreement between individuals and the governing power, aiming to ensure collective order and well-being.

In the contemporary context, impartiality is a central principle in the discussion of distributive and procedural justice. Impartiality demands that decisions and policies must be pursuedwithout favoritism, prejudice, or personal interests, ensuring that all individuals are treated fairly and equitably. The perspectives of John Rawls or Amartya Sen provide context for several challenges to impartiality. Firstly, existing social and political structures often reflect historical and systemic inequalities that hinder the impartial application of laws and policies. In addition, economic and political interests often influence government decisions, undermining public trust in the impartiality of institutions.

While impartiality is crucial to the functioning of a healthy democracy, corruption, nepotism and favouritism are significant barriers that undermine fairness and justice as well as maintaining public trust and promoting citizen participation.

Through transparent practices, citizen participation and accountability, it is possible to advance in the construction of a society where impartiality is a justifiable and justified norm.

The European Union's state aid rules generally prevent Member States from providing financial support to companies in a way that distorts competition and cross-border trade within the EU. However, such measures may be considered "compatible with the EU's internal market" for a number of reasons. Since the early 2000s, there has been a tendency in the European Union to give Member States more and more freedom to make use of exemptions from the general prohibition on state aid. Recent challenges, such as the coronavirus crisis or the Russian invasion of Ukraine, may even reinforce this tendency, since state aid can also serve to offset the negative effects of economic crises, and the European Commission seems to have adopted a rather accommodating attitude towards such national instruments. No wonder that in 2020, the year of the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis, the EU-27 Member States spent EUR 320.22 billion on state aid, almost two and a half times more than in the previous year.

Despite this legitimisation of state aid, its economic impact as a form of market intervention is hotly debated. Depending on the regulatory, political and economic environment in which an aid measure is implemented, such intervention may, in addition to its potential positive effects, have negative consequences from the point of view of market participants (other than the aid beneficiaries) or consumers, or even lead to serious market distortions.

This study aims to highlight the potential consequences of an extensive interpretation of “legitimate state aid” from a critical point of view, evaluating the impact of crises measures in light of the fundamental objectives of EU internal market and competition policy. The central argument of the study is that in a period of crisis, when the Commission is taking a more permissive approach to state aid in Member States, it is particularly important that the mechanism for allocating aid is transparent and that the Commission can monitor the impartiality of the allocation. In contrast to this requirement, the European Court of Auditors' 2024 report found shortcomings in the Commission's monitoring of crisis aid, which is typically a fast-moving procedure based on limited information.

This paper aims to illustrate how an overly permissive EU state aid policy and shortcomings in the Commission's monitoring process can undermine the principle of impartiality, using Hungary as a case study. Hungary is a particularly interesting example, both because of serious problems with the rule of law (including the fairness of public authorities) and because the economic policy of the country is influenced by a strong nationalist and protectionist political ideology represented by the governing party. The study examines the domestic implementation of Hungarian state aid measures in selected economic sectors (mainly through the State Aid Transparency Public Search page) that Hungary notified to the Commission between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2024. The findings of the research might serve as a basis for further similar research, in particular for a market impact assessment of state aid measures in Hungary or other Member States.

Due to the specific nature of administrative litigation, the position of the administrative body is somewhat "schizophrenic" during judicial review in some respects, since, as a public body, it has the classic role of defendant and should at the same time be promoting the exercise of the plaintiff's rights. Since public administration is always required to state the reasons for its decisions, in accordance with the principle of the rule of law, the defence of its activity will firstly rely on this, but not only. The facilitation of the exercise of the rights of the plaintiff is also fundamentally linked to the principles of the rule of law and legality, since the claimant must be able to challenge the administrative act effectively before the courts, not only in terms of content, but also in terms of procedure. The administrative body must both inform the prospective plaintiff of the legal remedies available to him in connection with the act committed and, in a large number of cases, actively cooperate in initiating judicial review. In many cases, the defendant body is also in charge of the enforcement of the court's judgment. The defensive activity therefore begins before the proceedings are even instituted - or even before the application is lodged - and may even end long after the final judgment has been delivered. During this long period, there are a lot of possible hinderances administration can cause if not complying with administrative court procedure rules. Judges have to react unbiased to these in order to guarantee effective judicial protection, however, this is often not that easy. The paper will investigate possible ways to really secure the equality of arms and the impartiality of judges and courts.

Main research question: Does using a ranked tender allocation method lead to bias in the allocation of scarce subsidies in the Netherlands?

Problem setting

Dutch subsidy law has the possibility to put a ceiling on the total amount to be paid per subsidy program. Because there is a possibility that there are more potential parties interested in obtaining a subsidy than funds are available, an allocation method is required. The three most important methods are first come, first served, having a draw, and using a tender procedure. This final procedure is the object of this study. Subsidy tenders are used in various subsidy policies, from innovation funds to cultural subsidies and from housing to the allocation of research grants.

A fundament of subsidizing is that it has a stimulating, causal effect. Receiving the subsidy should be the decisive factor in leading to the performance of the action or activity. The most effective subsidy implies a counterfactual situation where if the subsidy were not there, the activity does not take place. Subsidy allocation by tender can lead to bias in this causality. Because the projects are ranked on quality only the ‘best’ projects are selected. These projects might be viable on their own merits without making use of a subsidy, due to their high quality. When this effect occurs, there could be a bias for the most established players in the subsidy field of receiving the subsidy.

Usually, in the tender procedure, a ranking is made based on qualities in the project application. The list then descends by party having the most points on these criteria. An expert group, independent of the government body, awards the points that form the ranking. In the subsidy regulation text, the government sets out the criteria on which the expert group needs to base their ranking and advice. The committee, using their expertise, scores the applicants based on these criteria. This process should make the allocation as objective as possible. Based on the advice of the expert group, the granting body allocates the subsidies. Applicants can register notions of objection and review on the basis of this decision.

So far, the legal aspect of bias has been overlooked in the empirical literature. Since the Netherlands has a well-established codification of subsidy law, this article contributes to legal determinants of bias in subsidies.

Methodology

Using a case of the allocation of multiyear cultural subsidies in Utrecht, I assess possible bias that can arise in subsidy allocation. I first we look at the criteria on which the ranking is based as published in the subsidy scheme. I assess whether the criteria themselves can lead to bias for a) established players; b) unnecessary subsidization, which is a form of institutional bias. Secondly, I look at the application of these criteria by the expert group. I use the published ranking of the cultural applicants and the justification provided by the expert group for the ranking.