EU blocks Poland's €26 million for MAN Trucks, saying the aid did not win the plant
Brussels found Poland could not show the aid changed MAN's decision. Most of the package was a tax break, and none of it was ever paid.
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Business & StartupsKey facts
- Decision
- October 5, 2026, case SA.114436
- Aid
- about €26 million, of which €23.7 million was a tax exemption and €2.4 million a grant
- Reason
- no proof the aid was decisive or kept to the minimum necessary
- Money
- never paid out, as Poland had suspended it pending approval
The European Commission ruled on October 5 that Poland cannot give MAN Trucks about €26 million (PLN 116 million) to expand its truck factory in Niepołomice, near Kraków. Poland failed to show the money was what brought the investment there, the Commission said.
No money has to be clawed back. When the Commission opened its investigation in July 2025, it noted that Poland had decided to grant the aid but suspended it pending approval.
Mostly a tax break, not a cheque
The package was smaller in cash than the headline figure suggests. According to the Commission's 2025 announcement, it combined a direct grant of about €2.4 million with a corporate income tax exemption worth about €23.7 million. In other words, roughly nine tenths of the support was tax that MAN Trucks would not have paid.
The expansion was expected to create about 1,400 jobs in the Małopolskie region, which is eligible for regional aid under EU rules. MAN Trucks belongs to the MAN Group, part of the Volkswagen Group.
The test Poland failed
EU regional aid rules let governments subsidize investment in poorer regions, but only if the aid has a real "incentive effect": it must be the reason the company invests in that place. The amount must also be the minimum needed to make that happen.
Poland met neither condition, according to the Commission. Nothing in the file suggested the truck maker had a credible alternative site in mind, and Warsaw never demonstrated that a smaller sum would not have done the job.
The Commission did not dispute that the project helps a less advantaged region. In its preliminary view in 2025 it said as much. The problem was the question regulators always ask in these cases: would the factory have grown there without the money? Poland's evidence did not show otherwise, the Commission found.
What is still unknown
The decision does not say whether the expansion has gone ahead or how MAN will respond. The full reasoning will appear under case number SA.114436 in the Commission's State aid register once confidential details are removed.
Sources
- Commission finds Polish support for MAN Trucks factory expansion incompatible State aidEuropean Commissionprimary source