Brussels, 07/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has launched a consultation to run from 4 April to 4 June to gather views from citizens and stakeholders on a first draft of the new regulation on the application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty for certain categories of aid granted to companies working in the production, processing and marketing of fishing products and aquaculture. This regulation is called the “Block Exemption Regulation” and aims to simplify aid-granting procedures for member states by authorising a range of measures fulfilling horizontal common interest objectives, without prior notification to the Commission.
The current regulation expired on 31 December 2013. The general philosophy of the new draft remains the same though it has to be tailored to the context of the new common fisherioes policy (CFP): to exempt from the notification requirement aid to SMEs for certain measures which would have met the eligibility conditions for assistance from the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF).
The categories of aid affected by the exemption are: - 1) fisheries sector (aid for innovation, for advisory services, for partnership between scientists and fishermen, to promote human capital and social dialogue, to facilitate diversification and new forms of income; aid to start-up support for young fishermen, to improve health and safety; aid to mutual funds for adverse climatic events and environmental incidents, to support systems of allocation of fishing opportunities, to support the design and implementation of conservation measures, to limit the impact of fishing on the marine environment and adapt fishing to the protection of species, to limit the impact of fishing on the marine environment and adapt fishing to the environment, to innovation linked to the conservation of maritime biological resources, for the protection and restoration of marine biodiversity and ecosystems and improve energy efficiency and to mitigate the effects of climate change, for added value, product quality and use of unwanted catches, to fishing ports, landing sites, auction halls and shelters, to inland fishing and inland aquatic fauna and flora; - 2) aquaculture (aid for innovation, productive investments, public health measures etc.) 3) marketing- and processing-related measures; 4) other categories of aid (aid for data collection, to make good the damage caused by natural disasters, irrespective of the size of the beneficiary).
This regulation shall not apply to aid for individual projects with eligible costs in excess of €2 million, or where the amount of aid exceeds €1 million per beneficiary per year. (LC)