On Wednesday 4 October, the European Commission adopted an amendment to the “de minimis” regulation concerning the fisheries and aquaculture sector. De minimis aid consists of small amounts of aid that are exempt from State aid control as they are deemed not to have any impact on competition and trade within the European internal market.
The amendment to the regulation adopted on 4 October will first raise the ceiling for de minimis aid from €30,000 to €40,000 per company over a period of three fiscal years. However, the Commission believes that such an increase requires closer monitoring. Member States opting for this higher individual ceiling should therefore use a central register to keep track of the aid granted.
Secondly, only the primary production of fishery and aquaculture products will continue to be covered by the de minimis regulation specific to the fisheries sector, while the processing and marketing of products will come under the general de minimis regulation (EU/1407/2013).
The amendments also introduce a new calculation, including updated data, of the maximum cumulative amounts of de minimis aid that can be granted per Member State, known as ‘national ceilings’.
In addition, under Article 349 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, the amendments include a targeted measure for Europe’s outermost regions. Thus, certain operations excluded from the scope of the de minimis Regulation in the fisheries sector should, exceptionally, be authorised in the case of these outermost regions in order, in particular, to facilitate the modernisation of small vessels of less than 12 metres and to remedy the safety problems linked to the obsolescence of the fleet and exposure to extreme weather events in these regions.
Finally, the validity of the de minimis regulation in the fisheries sector has been extended until 31 December 2029.
Link to the amended regulation: https://aeur.eu/f/8vx
Link to annexes: https://aeur.eu/f/8vy (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)