The European Commission has presented a revised draft of the new De-minimis-regulations. These rules determine up to which limit grants may be given without prior approval by the EU. So far this limit has been 100.000 Euros over a period of three years. Higher grants are subject to prior permission in order to prevent distortion of competition in the EU. Now this limit is to be lifted to 200.000 Euros in order to enable the Commission to concentrate on those cases in which grants are well beyond the established limits.
The new draft takes into account the comments on the original draft which had been made on the occasion of a public hearing in March 2006.
The new exemption rules will be limited to those cases for which the grant amount can be precisely calculated right in advance. The new limit also applies to state guarantees provided that these relate to loans not exceeding 1.7 million Euros. Member states and further interest groups will be again be given the opportunity to comment on the new draft before it will finally be cast into law at the end of this year.
Additional information and the complete draft by the Commission are available online. 