You need to understand the setup of the European Union and EU state aid law. Part of the idea of the EU is creating a common internal market between the 28 EU member states. For creating a level playing field that is not distorted by state intervention, you have to prevent single member states from giving unilateral advantages to their own companies (ie creating &quot;national champions&quot;). So if member state A gives an illegal subsidy to a company, you could of course fine member state A to prevent this behaviour in the future - but you would not be able to remedy the distortion of competition that already occured because of the subsidy. It is much more efficient to order member state A to recover the illegal subsidy they granted to the company in the first place.<p>It is quite telling that the Belgian government in this case is actually going to appeal the Commission decision - although the Commission decision would lead to Belgium being granted 800 million Euros!