Brussels, 09/06/2006 (Agence Europe) - The European Association of Craft and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (UEAPME) has welcomes the Commission's decision to set the new “de minimis” threshold for aid at 200 000 euros per enterprise over a period of three years, and insists that this threshold should not be modified. The threshold below which enterprises do not have to notify the Commission of public financing is currently set at 100 000 euros, and will thus be doubled, reaching a "sufficient" level in the eyes of the European employers' organisation. “An increase above 200.000 EUR, however, would be counter-productive, as it would shield a large quantity of state aid from public scrutiny and increase the danger of misuse of such funds”, said Hans Werner Müller, Secretary General of UEAPME, in a press release. Further increasing this threshold would not benefit SMEs, which do not have the capacity to absorb more public aid, but would only benefit larger enterprises, he added, calling for resistance to any pressure in that direction. Before the publication of the Commission's decision in the Official Journal (probably at the end of the week), UEAPME nonetheless hopes to see changes to the definition of non-transparent aid and aid cumulation. The planned rules exclude from the scope of de minimis aid any aid which cannot be calculated precisely which, according to UEAPME, could reduce access to some financial instruments for SMEs, such as guarantee schemes for credits and loans.