State aid rules: new categories of State aid

PURPOSE: to amend the EU State Aid Enabling Regulation in order to improve the interplay between EU funding programmes and State aid rules.

NON-LEGISLATIVE ACT: Council Regulation (EU) 2018/1911 amending Regulation (EU) 2015/1588 on the application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to certain categories of horizontal State aid.

CONTENT: this Regulation makes targeted amendments to the General Block Exemption Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2018/1911) to ensure that nationally managed funds and centrally managed EU funds can be combined as smoothly as possible, without distorting competition in the Single Market.

Centrally-managed EU funds, meaning funds under direct or indirect Union management (to the exclusion of funds under shared management with Member States), increasingly support activities in the common EU interest through financial instruments or budgetary guarantees, and thereby provide a particularly valuable contribution to growth and cohesion.

The amending Regulation empowers the Commission to declare that the following categories of aid are compatible with the internal market and are not subject to the notification requirement of Article 108(3) TFEU This concerns aid in favour of:

- financing channelled through or supported by EU centrally-managed financial instruments or budgetary guarantees, where the aid consists in the form of additional funding provided through State resources;

- projects supported by EU European Territorial Cooperation programmes.

ENTRY INTO FORCE: 27.12.2018.