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The financial crisis has hit Europe with a truly unprecedented power, which has in early 2008 expected only a very small circle of pessimists. After the first cracks began to appear on the mortgage market in the U.S., however, started an avalanche that rolls until today. In today’s globalized world, it would be very naive to believe that this would not have an impact on the European Union internal market.With the crisis in the banking sector, the Member States of the European Union fought against the crisis in various ways. Allocation of the state aid in the first months of the crisis took place within the existing rules, yet it was necessary to enclose these huge expenditures by rules and regulations issued by the European Commission.This article discusses the types of state aid, which were used at the time from the first wave of state aid granted by Member States from 2008 to 2010 and also assess the current situation together with the evaluation of the approach of the European Commission.

The aim of this article is to provide a comprehensive view on the application of the principle of proportionality in the Commission’s decisions imposing fines in the area of state aids as well as the EU courts exercise of the jurisdiction over these decisions.The primary and secondary sources of law and the case law would be investigated in this article. The author would like to briefly describe the historical background of the application of the principle of proportionality and by analysing the case law follow the evolvement of the application of the principle. The study should bring the answer on question whether the rule of law (in this case principle of proportionality) is safeguarded enough by the courts review of the decisions imposing fines.