Contributor(s): Ruben Lapa Maximiano, Natura Gracia, Roberto Alimonti | As the world slowly comes out of the pandemic, a number of policy questions arise: was state intervention sufficient? Were the instruments appropriate? Has the level-playing field been altered by the uneven capacity of states to dip into their own pockets? Would a European coordinated strategy have been more appropriate? The panel's aims is twofold: first, to evaluate what happened during the pandemic, taking stock of the effectiveness of the state aid measures and the competition tools used to respond to and manage the crisis; second, to assess whether any policy changes are necessary to upgrade the toolkit for the next crisis to come.