State funding that meets the criteria specified in Article 107(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union constitutes state aid and must be notified to the European Commission in accordance with Article 108(3) of the Treaty. However, pursuant to Article 109 of the Treaty, the Council may determine the categories of aid that are exempt from that notification requirement. In accordance with Article 108(4) of the Treaty, the Commission may adopt regulations relating to those categories of state aid. In Regulation (EU) 2015/1588 the Council decided, in accordance with Article 109 of the Treaty, that de minimis aid (that is, aid granted to the same undertaking over a given period of time that does not exceed a certain fixed amount) could constitute one of those categories. On this basis, it is considered that de minimis aid does not meet all the criteria set out in Article 107(1) of the Treaty and, therefore, is not subject to the notification procedure.
On 13 December 2023, Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/2831 of 13 December 2023 on the application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to de minimis aid ( "Regulation (EU) 2023/2831”) was published, entering into force on 1 January 2024.
This Regulation (EU) 2023/2831 shall apply to aid granted before its entry into force if such aid satisfies all the conditions set out in the Regulation. Any individual de minimis aid granted between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2023 and fulfilling the conditions set out in Regulation (EU) 1407/2013 shall be deemed not to meet the criteria of Article 107(1) of the Treaty and shall therefore be exempted from the notification requirement of Article 108(3) of the Treaty.
The entry into force of Regulation (EU) 2023/2831 introduces the following new features:
- It increases the ceiling on the amount of de minimis aid that a single undertaking may receive per Member State over any three-year period from 200.000 to 300.000 euros.
- From 1 January 2026, Member States will enter information on granted de minimis aid in a central register at national or EU level within 20 working days following the grant of the aid. The information entered in the central register shall include the identifying particulars of the beneficiary, the amount of the aid, the date of grant, the authority granting the aid, the aid instrument and the sector concerned based on the statistical classification of economic activities in the European Union (the “NACE Classification”). The central register shall be set up in such a way as to facilitate public access to the information whilst ensuring compliance with EU data protection rules, including through pseudonymisation of specific entries where necessary.
- In order to enable the State to ensure that information on de minimis aid is entered in a register, financial intermediaries operating de minimis aid schemes must notify the Member State on a quarterly basis of the total amount of de minimis aid received within ten days from the end of a given quarter. The date of granting shall be the last day of the quarter.
Regulation (EU) 2023/2831 will initially apply until 31 December 2030..
Claudia Fernández, Lawyer at ELZABURU
For more information:
Javier Herreros jherreros@goodwill.es Tel.: 626 20 73 22
