The Tercas case, state aid, and antitrust: are there holes in the warp?

In order to guarantee the existence of competition in the internal market, the rules on State aid and the antitrust provisions are supposed to act in a complementary way, as if the latter were to cover the behaviours that the former do not capture and vice versa. Conversely, taking its cue from the recent Tercas case, the article shows that neither State aid nor competition law covers one case: that of solidarity-laden activities carried out by private agents with the intention of keeping failing firms in the internal market. The article discusses the reasons for this gap and its sustainability.