Brussels, 30/06/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission authorised the part of the State regional aid map that applies to the "Lisboa e Vale do Tejo" region until 31 December 2006. Thus this region has been declared eligible under Article 87 (paragraph 3.c) of the EC Treaty, relating to regions in difficulty, and maximum regional aid intensities have been set.
In December 1999, the Commission adopted two decisions on the definition of the regions eligible to regional state aid in Portugal for the period between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2006. The first approved the part of regional aid concerning the least favoured Portuguese regions while the second opened a formal examination procedure against the region of "Lisboa e Vale do Tejo" (see EUROPE of 10 December 1999, p.10). Following the formal examination procedure, the Commission announced that the doubts concerning this region had been lifted and that this part of the map could be, in this case, considered as being compatible with the common market on the basis of the relative rules in this matter. The regional aid will be limited to 10% in grant equivalent (NGE) in the "Grande Lisboa" sub-region: they may be higher, but will gradually reduced in the "Leziria do Tejo, Medio Tejo, Oeste and Peninsula de Setubal" sub-regions to reach 20% NGE as of 2004 (from a maximum rate of 47.68% NGE in 2000). Nevertheless the small and medium sized enterprises benefit from an additional aid totalling 10% gross of investment costs.
Following this decision, only the regional aid map relating to Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, as well as part of the map for Italy, are still under examination by the Commission.