Commission Regulation (EU) No 360/2012Show full title

Article 2 De minimis aid

1. Aid granted to undertakings for the provision of a service of general economic interest shall be deemed not to meet all the criteria of Article 107(1) of the Treaty and shall therefore be exempt from the notification requirement of Article 108(3) of the Treaty if it fulfils the conditions laid down in paragraphs 2 to 8 of this Article.

2. The total amount of de minimis aid granted to any one undertaking providing services of general economic interest shall not exceed EUR 500 000 over any period of three fiscal years.

This ceiling shall apply irrespective of the form of the de minimis aid and regardless of whether the aid granted by the Member State is financed entirely or partly by resources of Union origin. The period shall be determined by reference to the fiscal years used by the undertaking in the Member State concerned.

3. The ceiling laid down in paragraph 2 shall be expressed as a cash grant. All figures used shall be gross, that is, before any deduction of tax or other charges. Where aid is awarded in a form other than a grant, the aid amount shall be the gross grant equivalent of the aid.

Aid payable in several instalments shall be discounted to its value at the moment of it being granted. The interest rate to be used for discounting purposes shall be the discount rate applicable at the time of grant.

4. This Regulation shall apply only to aid in respect of which it is possible to calculate precisely the gross grant equivalent of the aid ex ante without need to undertake a risk assessment (‘transparent aid’). In particular:

(a) aid comprised in loans shall be considered as transparent de minimis aid when the gross grant equivalent has been calculated on the basis of the reference rate applicable at the time of the grant;

(b) aid comprised in capital injections shall not be considered as transparent de minimis aid, unless the total amount of the public injection does not exceed the de minimis ceiling;

(c) aid comprised in risk capital measures shall not be considered as transparent de minimis aid, unless the risk capital scheme concerned provides capital only up to the de minimis ceiling to each target undertaking;

(d) individual aid provided under a guarantee scheme to undertakings which are not undertakings in difficulty shall be treated as transparent de minimis aid when the guaranteed part of the underlying loan provided under such scheme does not exceed EUR 3 750 000 per undertaking. If the guaranteed part of the underlying loan only accounts for a given proportion of this ceiling, the gross grant equivalent of that guarantee shall be deemed to correspond to the same proportion of the ceiling laid down in paragraph 2. The guarantee shall not exceed 80 % of the underlying loan. Guarantee schemes shall also be considered as transparent if:

(i)

before the implementation of the scheme, the methodology to calculate the gross grant equivalent of the guarantees has been accepted following notification of this methodology to the Commission under a regulation adopted by the Commission in the State aid area, and

(ii)

the approved methodology explicitly addresses the type of guarantees and the type of underlying transactions at stake in the context of the application of this Regulation.

5. Where the overall amount of de minimis aid under this Regulation granted to an undertaking for the provision of services of general economic interest exceeds the ceiling laid down in paragraph 2, that amount may not benefit from this Regulation, even for a fraction not exceeding that ceiling. In such a case, the benefit of this Regulation may not be claimed for this aid measure.

6. De minimis aid under this Regulation shall not be cumulated with State aid in respect of the same eligible costs if such cumulation would result in an aid intensity exceeding that stipulated in the specific circumstances of each case by a block exemption regulation or decision adopted by the Commission.

7. De minimis aid under this Regulation may be cumulated with de minimis aid under other de minimis regulations up to the ceiling laid down in paragraph 2.

8. De minimis aid under this Regulation shall not be cumulated with any compensation in respect of the same service of general economic interest, regardless of whether or not it constitutes State aid.