Brussels, 05/02/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 5 February, the European Commission announced it had given clearance to three separate state aid regimes proposed by the German, British and French authorities to help companies with financing problems due to the credit squeeze brought on by the current financial and economic crisis.
French aid consists in loans with interest rate relief concluded by 31 December 2010 at the latest and only applies to interest payments by 31 December 2012. After this date, companies will pay market interest rates. The scheme does not apply to companies in difficult on 1 July 2008, and is the third measure authorised for France under the new temporary regulations for state aid. “The measure allows access to credit to be facilitated for companies affected by the current economic slowdown”, Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said. She mainly welcomed the fact that companies whose difficulties are not due to the economic crisis are excluded from the scheme.
The German scheme consists in a regulation on risk-capital investment provisionally adapting a number of existing risk-capital schemes to the Commission's temporary framework for state aid measures to support access to finance in the current financial and economic crisis. The measure will allow for more flexible risk-capital investments until 2010, as a Commission press release on Thursday puts it. The measure, entitled Bundesrahmenregelung Risikokapital, will allow, until 2010, 8 risk-capital investment schemes implemented by German Länder to increase the maximum investment tranches from €1.5 million to €2.5 million over each 12-month period. The minimum private participation for risk capital investments is temporarily reduced from 50% to 30%. The risk-capital investment schemes concerned are aimed at facilitating the access to risk capital for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are in their early stages of development. With this decision, the Commission authorises four regional schemes in Berlin, Lower Saxony, Saxony and Saxony Anhalt (in Bavaria, Brandenburg, a second in Lower Saxony and in Thuringia). Decisions are expected in coming days.
The British scheme will allow aid of up to €500,000 per company to be granted. Commission competition services have said they are convinced the scheme meets conditions laid down in the Commission's temporary framework announced on 17 December 2008. In particular, the amount of the aid, as well as the exclusion of companies that were not in difficulty on 1 July 2008, will contribute to remedying any distortion of competition. The plan is the first measure authorised for the United Kingdom under the new temporary framework for state aid. (C.D./transl.jl)