On Tuesday 19 April, the European Commission announced the opening of a consultation on its draft revision of the rules on the application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to small amounts of horizontal aid, known as “de minimis” aid, provided to undertakings providing services of general economic interest (SGEI). These SGEIs consist of commercial service activities fulfilling services of general interest.
The current rules are due to expire on 31 December 2023. They allow Member States to grant, without prior notification to the Commission, public service compensation up to a so-called “de minimis” threshold of €500,000 per single SGEI provider over a period of three fiscal years.
The Commission wishes to amend this threshold to take inflation into account for the 2012-2030 period.
To this end, the institution proposes to set the maximum total amount of de minimis aid granted by a Member State to a single company providing SGEI over a period of three fiscal years at €650,000.
The Commission also wants the Member States to ensure that a central register of de minimis aid is available. This register should contain full information on all de minimis aid granted by the authorities of a Member State to undertakings providing SGEI.
For the European Commission, such a register will increase transparency requirements and reduce the administrative burden for undertakings that currently use a self-declaration system.
Finally, the European Commission’s proposal provides for the alignment of certain notions of the ‘de minimis’ regulation on SGEIs (EU/360/2012) with the general ‘de minimis’ regulation (EU/1407/2013): the idea of a ‘single undertaking’ and the provisions on ‘undertakings in difficulty’ and ‘merging undertakings’.
The consultation is open for contributions from stakeholders until 1 June 2023.
Access the consultation: https://aeur.eu/f/6ds (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)