On Thursday 3 November, the European Commission approved the amendments Germany has made to its regional aid map for the programming period 2014-2020.
The map specifies the conditions under which a state may grant aid to businesses to promote the economic development of certain regions, and places a cap on aid levels (aid intensities). The Commission's guidelines provide for the possibility of a mid-term review of maps previously approved by the Commission. This allows the member states to make changes to the list of regions or aid intensity, in order to take recent changes in the social and economic circumstances of each region into account.
The amendments aim to review the list of eligible regions, taking account of the administrative delimitations in place within the Region of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern at the time of the mid-term review. The region is now a 'region with high maximum aid intensity', which means that its economic situation is very unfavourable compared to the European average. Aid intensity may therefore cover 20% of eligible costs. As the whole region is eligible for support, the population coverage remains unchanged. The new map will apply from 1 January 2017 until 31 December 2020. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)