Brussels, 30/05/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 29 May 2013, EU industry ministers at the Competitiveness Council in Brussels agreed in principle on updating of the procedural regulation (659/1999) on rules for state aid investigations, and the empowerment regulation (994/98) that gives the Commission the power to introduce exemptions for certain categories from the normal prior notification and approval rules for state aid (see EUROPE 10854).
These are two key parts of the updating of state aid rules begun by the Commission in 2012 that is due to completed by the end of the year. Commissioner Joaquin Almunia explained that the aim of the two updates is: a) for the procedural regulation, to facilitate and speed up the processing of cases and complaints by introducing assessments by industry and assessments of the market based on information provided by companies; b) for the empowerment regulation, to expand the number of sector that can be exempted, such as culture, innovation, aid for repairing damage caused by natural disasters, amateur sport, aid for transport and aid for types of high-speed internet connection.
During the debate, several ministers said that, for the procedural regulation, it was important to reduce the time that proceedings take and market information must be provided in the language of the company. Companies should be allowed to submit information not only to the Commission, but also to the relevant member states. For the empowerment regulation, ministers said that it should be possible to exempt from the notification requirements or at least introduce greater flexibility for regional aid for big companies in struggling regions (zone C), in order to encourage investment and make it easier to launch big infrastructure work. There were calls for a raising from €200,000 to €500,000 of the de minimis threshold beyond which aid has to be notified to the Commission (Italy opposes this). (FG/transl.fl)