On Friday 26 January, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition published practical, non-binding guidelines enabling Member States to test whether or not the public support measures they are planning to introduce to give certain businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises or innovative businesses, access to risk financing constitute State aid.
According to the Market Economy Operator Principle (MEOP), enshrined in the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU, if a Member State intervenes as a private investor would and is remunerated for the risk assumed in a way that a private investor would accept under market conditions, such intervention can be considered free of State aid.
The document published by the Commission aims to provide guidance to Member States on how to apply this principle to risk financing measures and provides elements for assessing the existence of aid in the financing chain (investors, target companies and financial intermediaries).
The document also clarifies the type of investors that can be considered as private investors in this context and how the market economy operator principle can be applied to risk financing measures.
Link to the document: https://aeur.eu/f/alr (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)