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Law
Competition Policy

Targeted review of the General Block Exemption Regulation (State aid): extended scope for national funds to be combined with certain Union programmes (2nd consultation)

Policy field

Competition: State aid

 

Target group

All citizens, organisations and public authorities are welcome to contribute to this consultation.

 

Period of consultation

From 11.05.2020 to 06.07.2020

 

Objective of the consultation

The General Block Exemption Regulation (“GBER”) allows Member States to implement a wide range of public support measures without prior notification to the Commission, in areas such as research and development, environmental protection or support to SMEs. This reduces the administrative burden for public authorities and speeds up delivery of public support, including support granted via EU structural funds.

To ensure that national and EU funds can be combined seamlessly under the new Multiannual Financial Framework without undermining competition in the internal market, the Commission aims, with the present targeted review of the GBER, to improve the interplay between EU funding rules and State aid rules and streamline State aid control of national funds, including EU shared management funds, combined with EU programmes managed centrally by the Commission.

To this end, the European Commission has launched the targeted review of the General Block Exemption Regulation (the GBER) which extends the GBER to national funds, including EU shared management funds, combined with EU programmes managed centrally by the Commission in the following three areas:

  1. Financing and investment operations supported by the InvestEU Fund;
  2. RD&I projects having received a Seal of Excellence under Horizon2020 or Horizon Europe as well as co-funded projects independently evaluated and selected following transnational calls under the Horizon Europe programme including under Teaming actions independently evaluated and selected following transnational calls under Horizon 2020 or the Horizon Europe programme;
  3. European Territorial Cooperaion projects (ETC, also called Interreg).


This is the second public consultation. The first public consultation took place from 26.06.2019 to 27.09.2019. The consultation documents and replies of the first public consultation are available here.

 

How to submit your contribution

We welcome contributions from citizens, organisations and public authorities.

  • If you are answering this consultation as a citizen, please click here to submit your contribution.
  • If you are answering this consultation on behalf of an organisation, please click here to submit your contribution.
  • If you are answering this consultation on behalf of a public authority, please click here to submit your contribution.

Received contributions will be published on this webpage. Submissions that are clearly marked "confidential" will be treated as such and not published. In that case please also provide a non-confidential version of your reply.

We would appreciate receiving submissions electronically as attachments to emails in English, French or German. These attachments should, furthermore, be submitted in “.docx” or “.pdf” format, otherwise they will not be published.

It is important to read the privacy statement attached to this consultation for information on how your personal data and contribution will be dealt with.

Please note that we cannot guarantee to take account of replies received after the deadline.

 

View the consultation document

BG CS DA DE EL EN ES ET FI FR HR HU IT LT LV MT NL PL PT RO SK SL SV

 

Reference documents and other related consultations

Background note accompanying the first public consultation of the GBER amendment
BG CS DA DE EL EN ES ET FI FR HR HU IT LT LV MT NL PL PT RO SK SL SV

Press release: EN

 

Contact details

Responsible service:
Directorate-General for Competition – Unit 03
Please always indicate the reference number in your correspondence: HT.5224

e-mail: COMP-03-PUBLIC-CONSULTATIONatec [dot] europa [dot] eu (COMP-03-PUBLIC-CONSULTATION[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)

Postal address:
European Commission
Directorate-General for Competition, Unit 03
State aid Registry
1049 Bruxelles / Brussel
Belgique / België
Ref.: HT.5224

 

Contributions

Public authorities
Registered organisations
Non-registered organisations