Brussels, 19 April 2023
The European Commission is consulting on the draft text of a proposed revision of the rules on small amounts of aid (so-called de minimis aid) for services of general economic interest (‘SGEI’).
Under the current SGEI de minimis Regulation, Member States can grant public service compensation of up to €500,000 per SGEI provider over a three-year period (‘SGEI de minimis threshold’) without prior notification to the Commission for approval. Such amount is deemed to have no impact on competition and trade in the EU Single Market and therefore is not considered to be State aid. These rules are set to expire on 31 December 2023.
The recent evaluation of the SGEI rules applicable to health and social services showed that overall the SGEI de minimis Regulation has been fit for purpose. In December 2022, the Commission published a ‘call for evidence‘ on this proposed revision on the Better Regulation Portal: 28 contributions were received between the date of publication and 9 January 2023.
In this context, the Commission proposes to revise the SGEI de minimis threshold to adapt it to the current economic context, to align certain concepts with those of the general de minimis Regulation and to improve transparency requirements by introducing a mandatory register of beneficiaries, which will reduce the administrative burden for companies who currently use a self-declaration system.
All parties, in particular national authorities granting SGEI de minimis aid, can submit their views on the proposed revision in any official EU language on the Commission’s webpage from 19 April until 1 June 2023.
Source – EU Commission