02014R0651 — EN — 27.07.2020 — 002.001

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►B COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 651/2014 of 17 June 2014 declaring certain categories of aid compatible with the internal market in application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty (Text with EEA relevance) (OJ L 187 26.6.2014, p. 1)

Amended by:





Corrected by:









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COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 651/2014

of 17 June 2014

declaring certain categories of aid compatible with the internal market in application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty

(Text with EEA relevance)







TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I: Common provisions CHAPTER II: Monitoring CHAPTER III: Specific provisions for different categories of aid Section 1 — Regional aid Section 2 — Aid to SMEs Section 3 — Aid for access to finance for SMEs Section 4 — Aid for research and development and innovation Section 5 — Training aid Section 6 — Aid for disadvantaged workers and for workers with disabilities Section 7 — Aid for environmental protection Section 8 — Aid to make good the damage caused by certain natural disasters Section 9 — Social aid for transport for residents of remote regions Section 10 — Aid for broadband infrastructures Section 11 — Aid for culture and heritage conservation Section 12 — Aid for sport and multifunctional recreational infrastructures Section 13 — Aid for local infrastructures Section 14 — Aid for regional airports Section 15 — Aid for ports CHAPTER IV: Final Provisions







CHAPTER I

COMMON PROVISIONS

Article 1

Scope

1. This Regulation shall apply to the following categories of aid:

(a) regional aid;

(b) aid to SMEs in the form of investment aid, operating aid and SMEs' access to finance;

(c) aid for environmental protection;

(d) aid for research and development and innovation;

(e) training aid;

(f) recruitment and employment aid for disadvantaged workers and workers with disabilities;

(g) aid to make good the damage caused by certain natural disasters;

(h) social aid for transport for residents of remote regions;

(i) aid for broadband infrastructures;

(j) aid for culture and heritage conservation;

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(k) aid for sport and multifunctional recreational infrastructure;

(l) aid for local infrastructures;

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(m) aid for regional airports; and

(n) aid for ports.

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2. This Regulation shall not apply to:

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(a) schemes under Sections 1 (with the exception of Article 15), 2, 3, 4, 7 (with the exception of Article 44), and 10 of Chapter III of this Regulation, if the average annual State aid budget exceeds EUR 150 million, from six months after their entry into force. The Commission may decide that this Regulation shall continue to apply for a longer period to any of those aid schemes after having assessed the relevant evaluation plan notified by the Member State to the Commission, within 20 working days from the scheme’s entry into force. Where the Commission has already extended the application of this Regulation beyond the initial six months as regards such schemes, Member States may decide to extend those schemes until the end of the period of application of this Regulation, provided that the Member State concerned has submitted an evaluation report in line with the evaluation plan approved by the Commission. However, regional aid granted under this Regulation may be extended, by derogation, until the end of the period of validity of the relevant regional aid maps;

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(b) any alterations of schemes referred to in Article 1(2)(a), other than modifications which cannot affect the compatibility of the aid scheme under this Regulation or cannot significantly affect the content of the approved evaluation plan;

(c) aid to export-related activities towards third countries or Member States, namely aid directly linked to the quantities exported, to the establishment and operation of a distribution network or to other current costs linked to the export activity;

(d) aid contingent upon the use of domestic over imported goods.

3. ►M1 This Regulation shall not apply to:

(a) aid granted in the fishery and aquaculture sector, as covered by Regulation (EU) No 1379/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 1 ) with the exception of training aid, aid for SMEs' access to finance, aid in the field of research and development, innovation aid for SMEs, aid for disadvantaged workers and workers with disabilities, regional investment aid in outermost regions and regional operating aid schemes;

(b) aid granted in the primary agricultural production sector, with the exception of regional investment aid in outermost regions, regional operating aid schemes, aid for consultancy in favour of SMEs, risk finance aid, aid for research and development, innovation aid for SMEs, environmental aid, training aid and aid for disadvantaged workers and workers with disabilities;

(c) aid granted in the sector of processing and marketing of agricultural products, in the following cases: (i) where the amount of the aid is fixed on the basis of the price or quantity of such products purchased from primary producers or put on the market by the undertakings concerned; (ii) where the aid is conditional on being partly or entirely passed on to primary producers;

(d) aid to facilitate the closure of uncompetitive coal mines, as covered by Council Decision 2010/787/EU ( 2 );

(e) the categories of regional aid referred to in Article 13. ◄

Where an undertaking is active in the excluded sectors as referred to in points (a), (b) or (c) of the first subparagraph and in sectors which fall within the scope of this Regulation, this Regulation applies to aid granted in respect of the latter sectors or activities, provided that Member States ensure by appropriate means, such as separation of activities or distinction of costs, that the activities in the excluded sectors do not benefit from the aid granted in accordance with this Regulation.

4. This Regulation shall not apply to:

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(a) aid schemes which do not explicitly exclude the payment of individual aid in favour of an undertaking which is subject to an outstanding recovery order following a previous Commission decision declaring an aid granted by the same Member State illegal and incompatible with the internal market, with the exception of aid schemes to make good the damage caused by certain natural disasters;

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(b) ad hoc aid in favour of an undertaking as referred to in point (a);

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(c) aid to undertakings in difficulty, with the exception of aid schemes to make good the damage caused by certain natural disasters, start-up aid schemes and regional operating aid schemes, provided those schemes do not treat undertakings in difficulty more favourably than other undertakings. However, this Regulation shall apply by derogation to undertakings which were not in difficulty on 31 December 2019 but became undertakings in difficulty in the period from 1 January 2020 to 30 June 2021.

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5. This Regulation shall not apply to State aid measures, which entail, by themselves, by the conditions attached to them or by their financing method a non-severable violation of Union law, in particular:

(a) aid measures where the grant of aid is subject to the obligation for the beneficiary to have its headquarters in the relevant Member State or to be predominantly established in that Member State; However, the requirement to have an establishment or branch in the aid granting Member State at the moment of payment of the aid is allowed.

(b) aid measures where the grant of aid is subject to the obligation for the beneficiary to use nationally produced goods or national services;

(c) aid measures restricting the possibility for the beneficiaries to exploit the research, development and innovation results in other Member States.

Article 2

Definitions

For the purposes of this Regulation the following definitions shall apply:

(1) ‘aid’ means any measure fulfilling all the criteria laid down in Article 107(1) of the Treaty;

(2) ‘small and medium-sized enterprises’ or ‘SMEs’ means undertakings fulfilling the criteria laid down in Annex I;

(3) ‘worker with disabilities’ means any person who: (a) is recognised as worker with disabilities under national law; or (b) has long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairment(s) which, in interaction with various barriers, may hinder their full and effective participation in a work environment on an equal basis with other workers;

(4) ‘disadvantaged worker’ means any person who: (a) has not been in regular paid employment for the previous 6 months; or (b) is between 15 and 24 years of age; or (c) has not attained an upper secondary educational or vocational qualification (International Standard Classification of Education 3) or is within two years after completing full-time education and who has not previously obtained his or her first regular paid employment; or (d) is over the age of 50 years; or (e) lives as a single adult with one or more dependents; or (f) works in a sector or profession in a Member State where the gender imbalance is at least 25 % higher than the average gender imbalance across all economic sectors in that Member State, and belongs to that underrepresented gender group; or (g) is a member of an ethnic minority within a Member State and who requires development of his or her linguistic, vocational training or work experience profile to enhance prospects of gaining access to stable employment;

(5) ‘transport’ means transport of passengers by aircraft, maritime transport, road, rail, or by inland waterway or freight transport services for hire or reward;

(6) ‘transport costs’ means the costs of transport for hire or reward actually paid by the beneficiaries per journey, comprising: (a) freight charges, handling costs and temporary stocking costs, in so far as these costs relate to the journey; (b) insurance costs applied to the cargo; (c) taxes, duties or levies applied to the cargo and, if applicable, to the deadweight, both at point of origin and point of destination; and (d) safety and security control costs, surcharges for increased fuel costs;

(7) ‘remote regions’ means outermost regions, Malta, Cyprus, Ceuta and Melilla, islands which are part of the territory of a Member State and sparsely populated areas;

(8) ‘marketing of agricultural products’ means holding or display with a view to sale, offering for sale, delivery or any other manner of placing on the market, except the first sale by a primary producer to resellers or processors and any activity preparing a product for such first sale; a sale by a primary producer to final consumers shall be considered to be marketing if it takes place in separate premises reserved for that purpose;

(9) ‘primary agricultural production’ means production of products of the soil and of stock farming, listed in Annex I to the Treaty, without performing any further operation changing the nature of such products;

(10) ‘processing of agricultural products’ means any operation on an agricultural product resulting in a product which is also an agricultural product, except on-farm activities necessary for preparing an animal or plant product for the first sale;

(11) ‘agricultural product’ means the products listed in Annex I to the Treaty, except fishery and aquaculture products listed in Annex I to Regulation (EU) No 1379/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2013;

(12) ‘outermost regions’ means regions as defined in Article 349 of the Treaty. In accordance with European Council Decision 2010/718/EU, from 1 January 2012, Saint-Barthélemy ceased to be an outermost region. In accordance with European Council Decision 2012/419/EU on 1 January 2014, Mayotte became an outermost region;

(13) ‘coal’ means high-grade, medium-grade and low-grade category A and B coal within the meaning of the international codification system for coal established by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and clarified in the Council decision of 10 December 2010 on State aid to facilitate the closure of uncompetitive coal mines ( 3 );

(14) ‘individual aid’ means: (i) ad hoc aid; and (ii) awards of aid to individual beneficiaries on the basis of an aid scheme;

(15) ‘aid scheme’ means any act on the basis of which, without further implementing measures being required, individual aid awards may be made to undertakings defined within the act in a general and abstract manner and any act on the basis of which aid which is not linked to a specific project may be granted to one or several undertakings for an indefinite period of time and/or for an indefinite amount;

(16) ‘evaluation plan’ means a document containing at least the following minimum elements: the objectives of the aid scheme to be evaluated, the evaluation questions, the result indicators, the envisaged methodology to conduct the evaluation, the data collection requirements, the proposed timing of the evaluation including the date of submission of the final evaluation report, the description of the independent body conducting the evaluation or the criteria that will be used for its selection and the modalities for ensuring the publicity of the evaluation;

(17) ‘ad hoc aid’ means aid not granted on the basis of an aid scheme;

(18) ‘undertaking in difficulty’ means an undertaking in respect of which at least one of the following circumstances occurs: (a) In the case of a limited liability company (other than an SME that has been in existence for less than three years or, for the purposes of eligibility for risk finance aid, an SME within 7 years from its first commercial sale that qualifies for risk finance investments following due diligence by the selected financial intermediary), where more than half of its subscribed share capital has disappeared as a result of accumulated losses. This is the case when deduction of accumulated losses from reserves (and all other elements generally considered as part of the own funds of the company) leads to a negative cumulative amount that exceeds half of the subscribed share capital. For the purposes of this provision, ‘limited liability company’ refers in particular to the types of company mentioned in Annex I of Directive 2013/34/EU ( 4 ) and ‘share capital’ includes, where relevant, any share premium. (b) In the case of a company where at least some members have unlimited liability for the debt of the company (other than an SME that has been in existence for less than three years or, for the purposes of eligibility for risk finance aid, an SME within 7 years from its first commercial sale that qualifies for risk finance investments following due diligence by the selected financial intermediary), where more than half of its capital as shown in the company accounts has disappeared as a result of accumulated losses. For the purposes of this provision, ‘a company where at least some members have unlimited liability for the debt of the company’ refers in particular to the types of company mentioned in Annex II of Directive 2013/34/EU. (c) Where the undertaking is subject to collective insolvency proceedings or fulfils the criteria under its domestic law for being placed in collective insolvency proceedings at the request of its creditors. (d) Where the undertaking has received rescue aid and has not yet reimbursed the loan or terminated the guarantee, or has received restructuring aid and is still subject to a restructuring plan. (e) In the case of an undertaking that is not an SME, where, for the past two years: (1) the undertaking's book debt to equity ratio has been greater than 7,5 and (2) the undertaking's EBITDA interest coverage ratio has been below 1,0.

(19) ‘territorial spending obligations’: mean the obligations imposed by the authority granting the aid on beneficiaries to spend a minimum amount and/or conduct a minimum level of production activity in a particular territory;

(20) ‘adjusted aid amount’ means the maximum permissible aid amount for a large investment project, calculated according to the following formula: maximum aid amount = R × (A + 0,50 × B + 0 × C) where: R is the maximum aid intensity applicable in the area concerned established in an approved regional map and which is in force on the date of granting the aid, excluding the increased aid intensity for SMEs; A is the initial EUR 50 million of eligible costs, B is the part of eligible costs between EUR 50 million and EUR 100 million and C is the part of eligible costs above EUR 100 million

(21) ‘repayable advance’ means a loan for a project which is paid in one or more instalments and the conditions for the reimbursement of which depend on the outcome of the project;

(22) ‘gross grant equivalent’ means the amount of the aid if it had been provided in the form of a grant to the beneficiary, before any deduction of tax or other charge;

(23) ‘start of works’ means the earlier of either the start of construction works relating to the investment, or the first legally binding commitment to order equipment or any other commitment that makes the investment irreversible. Buying land and preparatory works such as obtaining permits and conducting feasibility studies are not considered start of works. For take-overs, ‘start of works’ means the moment of acquiring the assets directly linked to the acquired establishment;

(24) ‘large enterprises’ means undertakings not fulfilling the criteria laid down in Annex I;

(25) ‘fiscal successor scheme’ means a scheme in the form of tax advantages which constitutes an amended version of a previously existing scheme in the form of tax advantages and which replaces it.

(26) ‘aid intensity’ means the gross aid amount expressed as a percentage of the eligible costs, before any deduction of tax or other charge;

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(27) ‘assisted areas’ means areas designated in an approved regional aid map approved in application of Articles2020-2021, 107(3)(a) and (c) of the Treaty for the period from 1 July 2014 to 31 December 2021 for regional aid granted until 31 December 2021 and areas designated in an approved regional aid map approved in application of Articles 107(3)(a) and (c) of the Treaty for the period from 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2027 for regional aid granted after 31 December 2021;

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(28) ‘date of granting of the aid’ means the date when the legal right to receive the aid is conferred on the beneficiary under the applicable national legal regime;

(29) ‘tangible assets’ means assets consisting of land, buildings and plant, machinery and equipment;

(30) ‘intangible assets’ means assets that do not have a physical or financial embodiment such as patents, licences, know-how or other intellectual property;

(31) ‘wage cost’ means the total amount actually payable by the beneficiary of the aid in respect of the employment concerned, comprising over a defined period of time the gross wage before tax and compulsory contributions such as social security, child care and parent care costs;

(32) ‘net increase in the number of employees’ means a net increase in the number of employees in the establishment concerned compared with the average over a given period in time, and that any posts lost during that period must therefore be deducted and that the number of persons employed full-time, part-time and seasonal has to be considered with their annual labour unit fractions;

(33) ‘dedicated infrastructure’ means infrastructure that is built for ex-ante identifiable undertaking(s) and tailored to their needs.

(34) ‘financial intermediary’ means any financial institution regardless of its form and ownership, including fund-of-funds, private equity investment funds, public investment funds, banks, micro-finance institutions and guarantee societies;

(35) ‘journey’ means the movement of goods from the point of origin to the point of destination, including any intermediary sections or stages within or outside the Member State concerned, made using one or more means of transport;

(36) ‘fair rate of return (FRR)’ means the expected rate of return equivalent to a risk-adjusted discount rate which reflects the level of risk of a project and the nature and level of capital the private investors plan to invest;

(37) ‘total financing’ means the overall investment amount made into an eligible undertaking or project under Section 3 or under Articles 16 or 39 of this Regulation to the exclusion of entirely private investments provided on market terms and outside the scope of the relevant State aid measure;

(38) ‘competitive bidding process’ means a non-discriminatory bidding process that provides for the participation of a sufficient number of undertakings and where the aid is granted on the basis of either the initial bid submitted by the bidder or a clearing price. In addition, the budget or volume related to the bidding process is a binding constraint leading to a situation where not all bidders can receive aid;

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(39) ‘operating profit’ means the difference between the discounted revenues and the discounted operating costs over the economic lifetime of the investment, where this difference is positive. The operating costs include costs such as personnel costs, materials, contracted services, communications, energy, maintenance, rent, administration, but exclude depreciation charges and the costs of financing if these have been covered by investment aid. Discounting revenues and operating costs using an appropriate discount rate allows a reasonable profit to be made.

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Definitions applying to regional aid

(40) Definitions applying to aid for broadband infrastructures (Section 10) are applicable to the relevant regional aid provisions.

(41) ‘regional investment aid’ means regional aid granted for an initial investment or an initial investment in favour of a new economic activity;

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(42) ‘regional operating aid’ means aid to reduce an undertaking's current expenditure. This includes cost categories such as personnel costs, materials, contracted services, communications, energy, maintenance, rent, administration, but excludes depreciation charges and the costs of financing if these have been included in the eligible costs when granting investment aid;

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(43) ‘steel sector’ means all activities related to the production of one or more of the following products: (a) pig iron and ferro-alloys: pig iron for steelmaking, foundry and other pig iron, spiegeleisen and high-carbon ferro-manganese, not including other ferro-alloys; (b) crude and semi-finished products of iron, ordinary steel or special steel: liquid steel whether or not cast into ingots, including ingots for forging semi- finished products: blooms, billets and slabs; sheet bars and tinplate bars; hot-rolled wide coils, with the exception of production of liquid steel for castings from small and medium-sized foundries; (c) hot finished products of iron, ordinary steel or special steel: rails, sleepers, fishplates, soleplates, joists, heavy sections of 80 mm and over, sheet piling, bars and sections of less than 80 mm and flats of less than 150 mm, wire rod, tube rounds and squares, hot-rolled hoop and strip (including tube strip), hot-rolled sheet (coated or uncoated), plates and sheets of 3 mm thickness and over, universal plates of 150 mm and over, with the exception of wire and wire products, bright bars and iron castings; (d) cold finished products: tinplate, terneplate, blackplate, galvanised sheets, other coated sheets, cold-rolled sheets, electrical sheets and strip for tinplate, cold-rolled plate, in coil and in strip; (e) tubes: all seamless steel tubes, welded steel tubes with a diameter of over 406.4 mm;

(44) ‘synthetic fibres sector’ means: (a) extrusion/texturisation of all generic types of fibre and yarn based on polyester, polyamide, acrylic or polypropylene, irrespective of their end-uses; or (b) polymerisation (including polycondensation) where it is integrated with extrusion in terms of the machinery used; or (c) any ancillary process linked to the contemporaneous installation of extrusion/texturisation capacity by the prospective beneficiary or by another company in the group to which it belongs and which, in the specific business activity concerned, is normally integrated with such capacity in terms of the machinery used;

(45) ‘transport sector’ means the transport of passengers by aircraft, maritime transport, road or rail and by inland waterway or freight transport services for hire or reward; more specifically, the ‘transport sector’ means the following activities in terms of NACE Rev. 2: (a) NACE 49: Land transport and transport via pipelines, excluding NACE 49.32 Taxi operation, 49.42 Removal services, 49.5 Transport via pipeline; (b) NACE 50: Water transport; (c) NACE 51: Air transport, excluding NACE 51.22 Space transport.

(46) ‘scheme targeted at a limited number of specific sectors of economic activity’ means a scheme which covers activities falling within the scope of less than five classes (four-digit numerical code) of the NACE Rev. 2 statistical classification.

(47) ‘tourism activity’ means the following activities in terms of NACE Rev. 2: (a) NACE 55:Accommodation; (b) NACE 56: Food and beverage service activities; (c) NACE 79: Travel agency, tour operator reservation service and related activities; (d) NACE 90: Creative, arts and entertainment activities; (e) NACE 91: Libraries, archives, museums and other cultural activities; (f) NACE 93: Sports activities and amusement and recreation activities;

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(48) ‘sparsely populated areas’ means NUTS 2 regions with less than 8 inhabitants per km2 or NUTS 3 regions with less than 12,5 inhabitants per km2 or areas which are recognized by the Commission as such in an individual decision on a regional aid map in force at the time the aid is granted;

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(48a) ‘very sparsely populated areas’ means NUTS 2 regions with less than 8 inhabitants per km2 or areas which are recognized by the Commission as such in an individual decision on a regional aid map in force at the time the aid is granted;

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(49) ‘initial investment’ means: (a) an investment in tangible and intangible assets related to the setting-up of a new establishment, extension of the capacity of an existing establishment, diversification of the output of an establishment into products not previously produced in the establishment or a fundamental change in the overall production process of an existing establishment; or (b) an acquisition of assets belonging to an establishment that has closed or would have closed had it not been purchased, and is bought by an investor unrelated to the seller and excludes sole acquisition of the shares of an undertaking;

(50) ‘the same or a similar activity’ means an activity falling under the same class (four-digit numerical code) of the NACE Rev. 2 statistical classification of economic activities as laid down in Regulation (EC) No 1893/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 2006 establishing the statistical classification of economic activities NACE Revision 2 and amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 3037/90 as well as certain EC Regulations on specific statistical domains ( 5 );

(51) ‘initial investment in favour of new economic activity’ means: (a) an investment in tangible and intangible assets related to the setting up of a new establishment, or to the diversification of the activity of an establishment, under the condition that the new activity is not the same or a similar activity to the activity previously performed in the establishment; (b) the acquisition of the assets belonging to an establishment that has closed or would have closed had it not been purchased, and is bought by an investor unrelated to the seller, under the condition that the new activity to be performed using the acquired assets is not the same or a similar activity to the activity performed in the establishment prior to the acquisition;

(52) ‘large investment project’ means an initial investment with eligible costs exceeding EUR 50 million, calculated at prices and exchange rates on the date of granting the aid;

(53) ‘point of destination’ means the place where the goods are unloaded;

(54) ‘point of origin’ means the place where the goods are loaded for transport;

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(55) ‘areas eligible for operating aid’ means an outermost region referred to in Article 349 of the Treaty, a sparsely populated area or a very sparsely populated area;

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(56) ‘means of transport’ means rail transport, road freight transport, inland waterway transport, maritime transport, air transport, and intermodal transport;

(57) ‘urban development fund’ (‘UDF’) means a specialised investment vehicle set up for the purpose of investing in urban development projects under an urban development aid measure. UDFs are managed by an urban development fund manager;

(58) ‘urban development fund manager’ means a professional management company with legal personality, selecting and making investments in eligible urban development projects;

(59) ‘urban development project’ (‘UDP’) means an investment project that has the potential to support the implementation of interventions envisaged by an integrated approach to sustainable urban development and contribute to achieving of the objectives defined therein, including projects with an internal rate of return which may not be sufficient to attract financing on a purely commercial basis. An urban development project may be organised as a separate block of finance within the legal structures of the beneficiary private investor or as a separate legal entity, e.g. a special purpose vehicle;

(60) ‘integrated sustainable urban development strategy’ means a strategy officially proposed and certified by a relevant local authority or public sector agency, defined for a specific urban geographic area and period, that set out integrated actions to tackle the economic, environmental, climate, demographic and social challenges affecting urban areas;

(61) ‘in-kind contribution’ means the contribution of land or real estate where the land or real estate forms part of the urban development project;

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(61a) ‘relocation’ means a transfer of the same or similar activity or part thereof from an establishment in one contracting party to the EEA Agreement (initial establishment) to the establishment in which the aided investment takes place in another contracting party to the EEA Agreement (aided establishment). There is a transfer if the product or service in the initial and in the aided establishments serves at least partly the same purposes and meets the demands or needs of the same type of customers and jobs are lost in the same or similar activity in one of the initial establishments of the beneficiary in the EEA;

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Definitions for Aid to SMEs

(62) ‘employment directly created by an investment project’ means employment concerning the activity to which the investment relates, including employment created following an increase in the utilisation rate of the capacity created by the investment;

(63) ‘organisational cooperation’ means the development of joint business strategies or management structures, the provision of common services or services to facilitate cooperation, coordinated activities such as research or marketing, the support of networks and clusters, the improvement of accessibility and communication, the use of joint instruments to encourage entrepreneurship and trade with SMEs;

(64) ‘advisory services linked to cooperation’ means consulting, assistance and training for the exchange of knowledge and experiences and for improvement of cooperation;

(65) ‘support services linked to cooperation’ means the provision of office space, websites, data banks, libraries, market research, handbooks, working and model documents;

Definitions for Aid for access to finance for SMEs

(66) ‘quasi-equity investment’ means a type of financing that ranks between equity and debt, having a higher risk than senior debt and a lower risk than common equity and whose return for the holder is predominantly based on the profits or losses of the underlying target undertaking and which are unsecured in the event of default. Quasi-equity investments can be structured as debt, unsecured and subordinated, including mezzanine debt, and in some cases convertible into equity, or as preferred equity;

(67) ‘guarantee’ in the context of sections 1, 3 and 7 of the Regulation means a written commitment to assume responsibility for all or part of a third party's newly originated loan transactions such as debt or lease instruments, as well as quasi-equity instruments.;

(68) ‘guarantee rate’ means the percentage of loss coverage by a public investor of each and every transaction eligible under the relevant State aid measure;

(69) ‘exit’ means the liquidation of holdings by a financial intermediary or investor, including trade sale, write-offs, repayment of shares/loans, sale to another financial intermediary or another investor, sale to a financial institution and sale by public offering, including an initial public offering (IPO);

(70) ‘financial endowment’ means a repayable public investment made to a financial intermediary for the purposes of making investments under a risk finance measure, and where all the proceeds shall be returned to the public investor;

(71) ‘risk finance investment’ means equity and quasi-equity investments, loans including leases, guarantees, or a mix thereof to eligible undertakings for the purposes of making new investments;

(72) ‘independent private investor’ means a private investor who is not a shareholder of the eligible undertaking in which it invests, including business angels and financial institutions, irrespective of their ownership, to the extent that they bear the full risk in respect of their investment. Upon the creation of a new company, private investors, including the founders, are considered to be independent from that company;

(73) ‘natural person’ for the purpose of Articles 21 and 23 means a person other than a legal entity who is not an undertaking for the purposes of Article 107(1) of the Treaty;

(74) ‘equity investment’ means the provision of capital to an undertaking, invested directly or indirectly in return for the ownership of a corresponding share of that undertaking;

(75) ‘first commercial sale’ means the first sale by a company on a product or service market, excluding limited sales to test the market;

(76) ‘unlisted SME’ means an SME which is not listed on the official list of a stock exchange, except for alternative trading platforms.

(77) ‘follow-on investment’ means additional risk finance investment in a company subsequent to one or more previous risk finance investment rounds;

(78) ‘replacement capital’ means the purchase of existing shares in a company from an earlier investor or shareholder;

(79) ‘entrusted entity’ means the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund, an international financial institution in which a Member State is a shareholder, or a financial institution established in a Member State aiming at the achievement of public interest under the control of a public authority, a public law body, or a private law body with a public service mission: the entrusted entity can be selected or directly appointed in accordance with the provisions of Directive 2004/18/EC on the coordination of procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts, ( 6 ) or any subsequent legislation replacing that Directive in full or in part;

(80) ‘innovative enterprise’ means an enterprise: (a) that can demonstrate, by means of an evaluation carried out by an external expert that it will in the foreseeable future develop products, services or processes which are new or substantially improved compared to the state of the art in its industry, and which carry a risk of technological or industrial failure, or (b) the research and development costs of which represent at least 10 % of its total operating costs in at least one of the three years preceding the granting of the aid or, in the case of a start-up enterprise without any financial history, in the audit of its current fiscal period, as certified by an external auditor;

(81) ‘alternative trading platform’ means a multilateral trading facility as defined in Article 4(1)(15) of Directive 2004/39/EC where the majority of the financial instruments admitted to trading are issued by SMEs;

(82) ‘loan’ means an agreement which obliges the lender to make available to the borrower an agreed amount of money for an agreed period of time and under which the borrower is obliged to repay the amount within the agreed period. It may take the form of a loan, or another funding instrument, including a lease, which provides the lender with a predominant component of minimum yield. The refinancing of existing loans shall not be an eligible loan.

Definitions for Aid for research and development and innovation

(83) ‘research and knowledge-dissemination organisation’ means an entity (such as universities or research institutes, technology transfer agencies, innovation intermediaries, research-oriented physical or virtual collaborative entities), irrespective of its legal status (organised under public or private law) or way of financing, whose primary goal is to independently conduct fundamental research, industrial research or experimental development or to widely disseminate the results of such activities by way of teaching, publication or knowledge transfer. Where such entity also pursues economic activities the financing, the costs and the revenues of those economic activities must be accounted for separately. Undertakings that can exert a decisive influence upon such an entity, in the quality of, for example, shareholders or members, may not enjoy preferential access to the results generated by it;

(84) ‘fundamental research’ means experimental or theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundations of phenomena and observable facts, without any direct commercial application or use in view;

(85) ‘industrial research’ means the planned research or critical investigation aimed at the acquisition of new knowledge and skills for developing new products, processes or services or for bringing about a significant improvement in existing products, processes or services. It comprises the creation of components parts of complex systems, and may include the construction of prototypes in a laboratory environment or in an environment with simulated interfaces to existing systems as well as of pilot lines, when necessary for the industrial research and notably for generic technology validation;

(86) ‘experimental development’ means acquiring, combining, shaping and using existing scientific, technological, business and other relevant knowledge and skills with the aim of developing new or improved products, processes or services. This may also include, for example, activities aiming at the conceptual definition, planning and documentation of new products, processes or services; Experimental development may comprise prototyping, demonstrating, piloting, testing and validation of new or improved products, processes or services in environments representative of real life operating conditions where the primary objective is to make further technical improvements on products, processes or services that are not substantially set. This may include the development of a commercially usable prototype or pilot which is necessarily the final commercial product and which is too expensive to produce for it to be used only for demonstration and validation purposes. Experimental development does not include routine or periodic changes made to existing products, production lines, manufacturing processes, services and other operations in progress, even if those changes may represent improvements;

(87) ‘feasibility study’ means the evaluation and analysis of the potential of a project, which aims at supporting the process of decision-making by objectively and rationally uncovering its strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats, as well as identifying the resources required to carry it through and ultimately its prospects for success;

(88) ‘personnel costs’ means the costs of researchers, technicians and other supporting staff to the extent employed on the relevant project or activity;

(89) ‘arm's length’ means that the conditions of the transaction between the contracting parties do not differ from those which would be stipulated between independent enterprises and contain no element of collusion. Any transaction that results from an open, transparent and non-discriminatory procedure is considered as meeting the arm's length principle;

(90) ‘effective collaboration’ means collaboration between at least two independent parties to exchange knowledge or technology, or to achieve a common objective based on the division of labour where the parties jointly define the scope of the collaborative project, contribute to its implementation and share its risks, as well as its results. One or several parties may bear the full costs of the project and thus relieve other parties of its financial risks. Contract research and provision of research services are not considered forms of collaboration.

(91) ‘research infrastructure’ means facilities, resources and related services that are used by the scientific community to conduct research in their respective fields and covers scientific equipment or sets of instruments, knowledge-based resources such as collections, archives or structured scientific information, enabling information and communication technology-based infrastructures such as grid, computing, software and communication, or any other entity of a unique nature essential to conduct research. Such infrastructures may be ‘single-sited’ or ‘distributed’ (an organised network of resources) in accordance with Article 2(a) of Council Regulation (EC) No 723/2009 of 25 June 2009 on the Community legal framework for a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) ( 7 );

(92) ‘innovation clusters’ means structures or organised groups of independent parties (such as innovative start-ups, small, medium and large enterprises, as well as research and knowledge dissemination organisations, non-for-profit organisations and other related economic actors) designed to stimulate innovative activity through promotion, sharing of facilities and exchange of knowledge and expertise and by contributing effectively to knowledge transfer, networking, information dissemination and collaboration among the undertakings and other organisations in the cluster;

(93) ‘highly qualified personnel’ means staff having a tertiary education degree and at least 5 years of relevant professional experience which may also include doctoral training;

(94) ‘innovation advisory services’ means consultancy, assistance and training in the fields of knowledge transfer, acquisition, protection and exploitation of intangible assets, use of standards and regulations embedding them;

(95) ‘innovation support services’ means the provision of office space, data banks, libraries, market research, laboratories, quality labelling, testing and certification for the purpose of developing more effective products, processes or services;

(96) ‘organisational innovation’ means the implementation of a new organisational method in an undertaking's business practices, workplace organisation or external relations, excluding changes that are based on organisational methods already in use in the undertaking, changes in management strategy, mergers and acquisitions, ceasing to use a process, simple capital replacement or extension, changes resulting purely from changes in factor prices, customisation, localisation, regular, seasonal and other cyclical changes and trading of new or significantly improved products;

(97) ‘process innovation’ means the implementation of a new or significantly improved production or delivery method (including significant changes in techniques, equipment or software), excluding minor changes or improvements, increases in production or service capabilities through the addition of manufacturing or logistical systems which are very similar to those already in use, ceasing to use a process, simple capital replacement or extension, changes resulting purely from changes in factor prices, customisation, localisation, regular, seasonal and other cyclical changes and trading of new or significantly improved products;

(98) ‘secondment’ means temporary employment of staff by a beneficiary with the right for the staff to return to the previous employer;

Definitions for aid for disadvantaged workers and for workers with disabilities

(99) ‘severely disadvantaged worker’ means any person who: (a) has not been in regular paid employment for at least 24 months; or (b) has not been in regular paid employment for at least 12 months and belongs to one of the categories (b) to (g) mentioned under the definition of ‘disadvantaged worker’.

(100) ‘sheltered employment’ means employment in an undertaking where at least 30 % of workers are workers with disabilities;

Definitions applying to aid for environmental protection

(101) ‘environmental protection’ means any action designed to remedy or prevent damage to physical surroundings or natural resources by a beneficiary's own activities, to reduce risk of such damage or to lead to a more efficient use of natural resources, including energy-saving measures and the use of renewable sources of energy;

(102) ‘Union standard’ means: (a) a mandatory Union standard setting the levels to be attained in environmental terms by individual undertakings; or (b) the obligation under Directive 2010/75/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 8 ) to use the best available techniques (BAT) and ensure that emission levels of pollutants are not higher than they would be when applying BAT; for the cases where emission levels associated with the BAT have been defined in implementing acts adopted under Directive 2010/75/EU, those levels will be applicable for the purpose of this Regulation; where those levels are expressed as a range, the limit where the BAT is first achieved will be applicable;

(103) ‘energy efficiency’ means an amount of saved energy determined by measuring and/or estimating consumption before and after implementation of an energy-efficiency improvement measure, whilst ensuring normalisation for external conditions that affect energy consumption;

(104) ‘energy efficiency project’ means an investment project that increases the energy efficiency of a building;

(105) ‘energy efficiency fund (EEF)’ means a specialised investment vehicle set up for the purpose of investing in energy efficiency projects aimed at improving the energy efficiency of buildings in both the domestic and non-domestic sectors. EEFs are managed by an energy efficiency fund manager;

(106) ‘energy efficiency fund manager’ means a professional management company with a legal personality, selecting and making investments in eligible energy efficiency projects;

(107) ‘high-efficiency cogeneration’ means cogeneration which satisfies the definition of high efficiency cogeneration as set out in Article 2(34) of Directive 2012/27/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 on energy efficiency, amending Directives 2009/125/EC and 2010/30/EU and repealing Directives 2004/8/EC and 2006/32/EC ( 9 );

(108) ‘cogeneration’ or combined heat and power (CHP) means the simultaneous generation in one process of thermal energy and electrical and/or mechanical energy;

(109) ‘energy from renewable energy sources’ means energy produced by plants using only renewable energy sources, as well as the share in terms of calorific value of energy produced from renewable energy sources in hybrid plants which also use conventional energy sources. It includes renewable electricity used for filling storage systems, but excludes electricity produced as a result of storage systems;

(110) ‘renewable energy sources’ means the following renewable non-fossil energy sources: wind, solar, aerothermal, geothermal, hydrothermal and ocean energy, hydropower, biomass, landfill gas, sewage treatment plant gas and biogases;

(111) ‘biofuel’ means liquid or gaseous fuel for transport produced from biomass;

(112) ‘sustainable biofuel’ means a biofuel fulfilling the sustainability criteria set out in Article 17 of Directive 2009/28/EC;

(113) ‘food based biofuel’ means a biofuel produced from cereal and other starch rich crops, sugars and oil crops as defined in the Commission's Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 98/70/EC relating to the quality of petrol and diesel fuels and amending Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources ( 10 );

(114) ‘new and innovative technology’ means a new and unproven technology compared to the state of the art in the industry, which carries a risk of technological or industrial failure and is not an optimisation or scaling up of an existing technology;

(115) ‘balancing responsibilities’ means responsibility for imbalances (deviations between generation, consumption and commercial transactions) of a market participant or its chosen representative, referred to as the ‘Balance Responsible Party’, within a given period of time, referred to as the ‘Imbalance Settlement Period’;

(116) ‘standard balancing responsibilities’ means non-discriminatory balancing responsibilities across technologies which do not exempt any generator from those responsibilities;

(117) ‘biomass’ means the biodegradable fraction of products, waste and residues from agriculture (including vegetal and animal substances), forestry and related industries including fisheries and aquaculture, as well as biogases and the biodegradable fraction of industrial and municipal waste;

(118) ‘total levelized costs of producing energy’ is a calculation of the cost of generating electricity at the point of connection to a load or electricity grid. It includes the initial capital, discount rate, as well as the costs of continuous operation, fuel, and maintenance;

(119) ‘environmental tax’ means a tax with a specific tax base that has a clear negative effect on the environment or which seeks to tax certain activities, goods or services so that the environmental costs may be included in their price and/or so that producers and consumers are oriented towards activities which better respect the environment;

(120) ‘Union minimum tax level’ means the minimum level of taxation provided for in the Union legislation; for energy products and electricity it means the minimum level of taxation laid down in Annex I to Council Directive 2003/96/EC of 27 October 2003 restructuring the Community framework for the taxation of energy products and electricity ( 11 );

(121) ‘contaminated site’ means a site where there is a confirmed presence, caused by man, of hazardous substances of such a level that they pose a significant risk to human health or the environment taking into account current and approved future use of the land;

(122) ‘polluter pays principle’ or ‘PPP’ means that the costs of measures to deal with pollution should be borne by the polluter who causes the pollution;

(123) ‘pollution’ means the damage caused by a polluter directly or indirectly damaging the environment, or by creating conditions leading to such damage to physical surroundings or natural resources;

(124) ‘energy efficient district heating and cooling’ means a district heating and cooling system which satisfies the definition of efficient district heating and cooling system set out in Article 2(41) and (42) of Directive 2012/27/EU. The definition includes the heating/cooling production plants and the network (including related facilities) necessary to distribute the heat/cooling from the production units to the customer premises;

(125) ‘polluter’ means someone who directly or indirectly damages the environment or who creates conditions leading to such damage.

(126) ‘re-use’ means any operation by which products or components that are not waste are used again for the same purpose for which they were conceived;

(127) ‘preparing for re-use’ means checking, cleaning or repairing recovery operations, by which products or components of products that have become waste are prepared so that they can be re-used without any other pre-processing;

(128) ‘recycling’ means any recovery operation by which waste materials are reprocessed into products, materials or substances whether for the original or other purposes. It includes the reprocessing of organic material but does not include energy recovery and the reprocessing into materials that are to be used as fuels or for backfilling operations;

(129) ‘state of the art’ means a process in which the re-use of a waste product to manufacture an end product is economically profitable normal practice. Where appropriate, the concept of state of the art must be interpreted from a Union technological and internal market perspective;

(130) ‘energy infrastructure’ means any physical equipment or facility which is located within the Union or linking the Union to one or more third countries and falling under the following categories: (a) concerning electricity: (i) infrastructure for transmission, as defined in Article 2(3) by Directive 2009/72/EC of 13 July 2009 concerning common rules for internal market in electricity ( 12 ); (ii) infrastructure for distribution, as defined in Article 2(5) by Directive 2009/72/EC; (iii) electricity storage, defined as facilities used for storing electricity on a permanent or temporary basis in above-ground or underground infrastructure or geological sites, provided they are directly connected to high-voltage transmission lines designed for a voltage of 110 kV or more; (iv) any equipment or installation essential for the systems defined in points (i) to (iii) to operate safely, securely and efficiently, including protection, monitoring and control systems at all voltage levels and substations; and (v) smart grids, defined as any equipment, line, cable or installation, both at transmission and low and medium voltage distribution level, aiming at two-way digital communication, real-time or close to real-time, interactive and intelligent monitoring and management of electricity generation, transmission, distribution and consumption within an electricity network in view of developing a network efficiently integrating the behaviour and actions of all users connected to it — generators, consumers and those that do both — in order to ensure an economically efficient, sustainable electricity system with low losses and high quality and security of supply and safety; (b) concerning gas: (i) transmission and distribution pipelines for the transport of natural gas and bio gas that form part of a network, excluding high-pressure pipelines used for upstream distribution of natural gas; (ii) underground storage facilities connected to the high-pressure gas pipelines mentioned in point (i); (iii) reception, storage and regasification or decompression facilities for liquefied natural gas (‘LNG’) or compressed natural gas (‘CNG’); and (iv) any equipment or installation essential for the system to operate safely, securely and efficiently or to enable bi-directional capacity, including compressor stations; (c) concerning oil: (i) pipelines used to transport crude oil; (ii) pumping stations and storage facilities necessary for the operation of crude oil pipelines; and (iii) any equipment or installation essential for the system in question to operate properly, securely and efficiently, including protection, monitoring and control systems and reverse-flow devices; (d) concerning CO2: networks of pipelines, including associated booster stations, for the transport of CO2 to storage sites, with the aim to inject the CO2 in suitable underground geological formations for permanent storage;

(131) ‘internal energy market legislation’ includes Directive 2009/72/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 concerning common rules for the internal market in electricity, Directive 2009/73/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 concerning common rules for the internal market in natural gas ( 13 ), Regulation (EC) No 713/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 establishing an Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators ( 14 ); Regulation (EC) No 714/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 on conditions for access to the network for cross-border exchanges ( 15 ) and Regulation (EC) No 715/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 on conditions for access to the natural gas transmission networks ( 16 ) or any subsequent legislation replacing these acts in full or in part;

Definitions applying to social aid for transport for residents of remote regions

(132) ‘normal residence’ means the place where a natural person lives for at least 185 days, in each calendar year, because of personal and occupational ties; in the case of a person whose occupational ties are in a different place from his/her personal ties and who lives in two or more Member States, the place of normal residence is regarded as the place of his/her personal ties provided that he/she returns there regularly; where a person is living in a Member State in order to carry out a task of a set duration, the place of residence is still regarded as being the place of his/her personal ties, irrespective of whether he/she returns there during the course of this activity; attendance at a university or school in another Member State does not constitute a transfer of normal residence; alternatively, ‘normal residence’ shall have the meaning attributed to it in Member States' national law.

Definitions for aid for broadband infrastructures

(133) ‘basic broadband’‘Basic broadband networks’ means networks with basic functionalities which are based on technology platforms such as asymmetric digital subscriber lines (up to ADSL2+ networks), non-enhanced cable (e.g. DOCSIS 2.0), mobile networks of third generation (UMTS) and satellite systems;

(134) ‘broadband-related civil engineering works’ means the civil engineering works which are necessary for the deployment of a broadband network, such as digging up a road in order to enable the placement of (broadband) ducts.

(135) ‘ducts’ means underground pipes or conduits used to house (fibre, copper or coax) cables of a broadband network.

(136) ‘physical unbundling’ grants access to the end-consumer access line and allows competitors' own transmission systems to directly transmit over it.

(137) ‘passive broadband infrastructure’ means a broadband network without any active component. It typically comprises civil engineering infrastructure, ducts and dark fibre and street cabinets.

(138) ‘next generation access (NGA) networks’ means advanced networks which have at least the following characteristics: (a) deliver services reliably at a very high speed per subscriber through optical (or equivalent technology) backhaul sufficiently close to user premises to guarantee the actual delivery of the very high speed; (b) support a variety of advanced digital services including converged all-IP services, and (c) have substantially higher upload speeds (compared to basic broadband networks). At the current stage of market and technological development, NGA networks are: (a) fibre-based access networks (FTTx), (b) advanced upgraded cable networks and (c) certain advanced wireless access networks capable of delivering reliable high-speeds per subscriber.

(139) ‘wholesale access’ means access which enables an operator to utilise the facilities of another operator. The widest possible access to be provided over the relevant network shall include, on the basis of the current technological developments, at least the following access products. For FTTH/FTTB networks: ducts access, access to dark fibre, unbundled access to the local loop, and bitstream access. For cable networks: duct access and bit-stream access. For FTTC networks: duct access, sub-loop unbundling and bit-stream access. For passive network infrastructure: duct access, access to dark fibre and/or unbundled access to the local loop. For ADSL-based broadband networks: unbundled access to the local loop, bit-stream access. For mobile or wireless networks: bit-stream, sharing of physical masts and access to the backhaul networks. For satellite platforms: bit-stream access.

Definitions for aid for culture and heritage conservation

(140) ‘difficult audiovisual works’: means the works identified as such by Member States on the basis of pre-defined criteria when setting up schemes or granting the aid and may include films whose sole original version is in a language of a Member State with a limited territory, population or language area, short films, films by first-time and second-time directors, documentaries, or low budget or otherwise commercially difficult works.

(141) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) List of the OECD: means all countries and territories that are eligible to receive official development assistance and included in the list compiled by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD);

(142) ‘reasonable profit’ shall be determined with respect to the typical profit for the sector concerned. In any event, a rate of return on capital that does not exceed the relevant swap rate plus a premium of 100 basis points will be considered to be reasonable.

Definitions for aid for sport and multifunctional recreational infrastructures

(143) ‘professional sport’ means the practice of sport in the nature of gainful employment or remunerated service, irrespective of whether or not a formal labour contract has been established between the professional sportsperson and the relevant sport organisation, where the compensation exceeds the cost of participation and constitutes a significant part of the income for the sportsperson. Travel and accommodation expenses to participate to the sport event shall not be considered as compensation for the purposes of this Regulation.

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Definitions for Aid for regional airports

(144) ‘airport infrastructure’ means infrastructure and equipment for the provision of airport services by the airport to airlines and the various service providers, including runways, terminals, aprons, taxiways, centralised ground handling infrastructure and any other facilities that directly support the airport services, excluding infrastructure and equipment which is primarily necessary for pursuing non-aeronautical activities;

(145) ‘airline’ means any airline with a valid operating licence issued by a Member State or a Member of the Common European Aviation Area pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1008/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 17 );

(146) ‘airport’ means an entity or group of entities performing the economic activity of providing airport services to airlines;

(147) ‘airport services’ means services provided to airlines by an airport or any of its subsidiaries, to ensure the handling of aircraft, from landing to take-off, and of passengers and freight, so as to enable airlines to provide air transport services, including the provision of ground handling services and the provision of centralised ground handling infrastructure;

(148) ‘average annual passenger traffic’ means a figure determined on the basis of the inbound and outbound passenger traffic during the two financial years preceding that in which the aid is granted;

(149) ‘centralised ground handling infrastructure’ means infrastructure which is normally operated by the airport manager and put at the disposal of the various providers of ground handling services active at the airport in exchange for remuneration, excluding equipment owned or operated by the providers of ground handling services;

(150) ‘high-speed train’ means a train capable of reaching speeds of over 200 km/h;

(151) ‘ground handling services’ means services provided to airport users at airports as described in the Annex to Council Directive 96/67/EC ( 18 );

(152) ‘non-aeronautical activities’ means commercial services to airlines or other users of the airport, including ancillary services to passengers, freight forwarders or other service providers, renting out of offices and shops, car parking and hotels;

(153) ‘regional airport’ means an airport with average annual passenger traffic of up to 3 million passengers;

Definitions for Aid for ports

(154) ‘port’ means an area of land and water made up of such infrastructure and equipment, so as to permit the reception of waterborne vessels, their loading and unloading, the storage of goods, the receipt and delivery of those goods and the embarkation and disembarkation of passengers, crew and other persons and any other infrastructure necessary for transport operators in the port;

(155) ‘maritime port’ means a port for, principally, the reception of sea-going vessels;

(156) ‘inland port’ means a port other than a maritime port, for the reception of inland waterway vessels;

(157) ‘port infrastructure’ means infrastructure and facilities for the provision of transport related port services, for example berths used for the mooring of ships, quay walls, jetties and floating pontoon ramps in tidal areas, internal basins, backfills and land reclamation, alternative fuel infrastructure and infrastructure for the collection of ship-generated waste and cargo residues;

(158) ‘port superstructure’ means surface arrangements (such as for storage), fixed equipment (such as warehouses and terminal buildings) as well as mobile equipment (such as cranes) located in a port for the provision of transport related port services;

(159) ‘access infrastructure’ means any type of infrastructure necessary to ensure access and entry from land or sea and river by users to a port, or in a port, such as roads, rail tracks, channels and locks;

(160) ‘dredging’ means the removal of sediments from the bottom of the waterway access to a port, or in a port;

(161) ‘alternative fuel infrastructure’ means a fixed, mobile or offshore port infrastructure allowing a port to supply vessels with energy sources such as electricity, hydrogen, biofuels as defined in point (i) of Article 2 of Directive 2009/28/EC, synthetic and paraffinic fuels, natural gas, including biomethane, in gaseous form (compressed natural gas (CNG)) and liquefied form (liquefied natural gas (LNG)), and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) which serve, at least partly, as a substitute for fossil oil sources in the energy supply to transport and which have the potential to contribute to its decarbonisation and enhance the environmental performance of the transport sector;

(162) ‘vessels’ mean floating structures, whether self-propelled or not, with one or more surface displacement hulls;

(163) ‘sea-going vessels’ mean vessels other than those which navigate solely or mainly in inland waterways or in waters within, or closely adjacent to, sheltered waters;

(164) ‘inland waterway vessels’ mean vessels intended solely or mainly for navigation on inland waterways or in waters within, or closely adjacent to, sheltered waters;

(165) ‘infrastructure for the collection of ship-generated waste and cargo residues’ means fixed, floating or mobile port facilities capable of receiving ship-generated waste or cargo residues as defined in Directive 2000/59/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 19 ).

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Article 3

Conditions for exemption

Aid schemes, individual aid granted under aid schemes and ad hoc aid shall be compatible with the internal market within the meaning of Article 107(2) or (3) of the Treaty and shall be exempted from the notification requirement of Article 108(3) of the Treaty provided that such aid fulfils all the conditions laid down in Chapter I of this Regulation, as well as the specific conditions for the relevant category of aid laid down in Chapter III of this Regulation.

Article 4

Notification thresholds

1. This Regulation shall not apply to aid which exceeds the following thresholds:

(a) for regional investment aid: the ‘adjusted aid amount’ of aid, as calculated in accordance with the mechanism defined in Article 2, point 20 for an investment with eligible costs of EUR 100 million;

(b) for regional urban development aid, EUR 20 million as laid down in Article 16(3);

(c) for investment aid to SMEs: EUR 7,5 million per undertaking per investment project;

(d) for aid for consultancy in favour of SMEs: EUR 2 million per undertaking, per project;

(e) for aid to SMEs for participation in fairs: EUR 2 million per undertaking, per year;

(f) for aid to SMEs for cooperation costs incurred by participating in European Territorial Cooperation projects: EUR 2 million per undertaking, per project;

(g) for risk finance aid: EUR 15 million per eligible undertaking as laid down in Article 21(9);

(h) for aid for start-ups: the amounts laid down per undertaking in Article 22(3), (4) and (5);

(i) for aid for research and development: (i) if the project is predominantly fundamental research: EUR 40 million per undertaking, per project; that is the case where more than half of the eligible costs of the project are incurred through activities which fall within the category of fundamental research; (ii) if the project is predominantly industrial research: EUR 20 million per undertaking, per project; that is the case where more than half of the eligible costs of the project are incurred through activities which fall within the category of industrial research or within the categories of industrial research and fundamental research taken together; (iii) if the project is predominantly experimental development: EUR 15 million per undertaking, per project; that is the case where more than half of the eligible costs of the project are incurred through activities which fall within the category of experimental development; (iv) if the project is a Eureka project or is implemented by a Joint Undertaking established on the basis of Article 185 or of Article 187 of the Treaty, the amounts referred to in points (i) to (iii) are doubled. (v) if the aid for research and development projects is granted in the form of repayable advances which, in the absence of an accepted methodology to calculate their gross grant equivalent, are expressed as a percentage of the eligible costs and the measure provides that in case of a successful outcome of the project, as defined on the basis of a reasonable and prudent hypothesis, the advances will be repaid with an interest rate at least equal to the discount rate applicable at the time of grant, the amounts referred to in points (i) to (iv) are increased by 50 %; (vi) aid for feasibility studies in preparation for research activities: EUR 7,5 million per study;

(j) for investment aid for research infrastructures: EUR 20 million per infrastructure;

(k) for aid for innovation clusters: EUR 7,5 million per cluster;

(l) innovation aid for SMEs: EUR 5 million per undertaking, per project;

(m) for aid for process and organisational innovation: EUR 7,5 million per undertaking, per project;

(n) for training aid: EUR 2 million per training project;

(o) for aid for the recruitment of disadvantaged workers: EUR 5 million per undertaking, per year;

(p) for aid for the employment of workers with disabilities in the form of wage subsidies: EUR 10 million per undertaking, per year;

(q) for aid for compensating the additional costs of employing workers with disabilities: EUR 10 million per undertaking, per year;

(r) for aid for compensating the costs of assistance provided to disadvantaged workers: EUR 5 million per undertaking, per year;

(s) for investment aid for environmental protection, excluding investment aid for the remediation of contaminated sites and aid for the distribution network part of the energy efficient district heating and cooling installation: EUR 15 million per undertaking per investment project;

(t) for investment aid for energy efficiency projects: EUR 10 million as laid down in Article 39(5);

(u) for investment aid for remediation of contaminated sites: EUR 20 million per undertaking per investment project;

(v) for operating aid for the production of electricity from renewable sources and operating aid for the promotion of energy from renewable sources in small scale installations: EUR 15 million per undertaking per project. When the aid is granted on the basis of a competitive bidding process under Article 42: EUR 150 million per year taking into account the combined budget of all schemes falling under Article 42;

(w) for investment aid for the district heating or cooling distribution network: EUR 20 million per undertaking per investment project;

(x) for investment aid for energy infrastructure: EUR 50 million per undertaking, per investment project;

(y) for aid for broadband infrastructures: EUR 70 million total costs per project;

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(z) for investment aid for culture and heritage conservation: EUR 150 million per project; operating aid for culture and heritage conservation: EUR 75 million per undertaking per year;

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(aa) for aid schemes for audiovisual works: EUR 50 million per scheme per year;

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(bb) for investment aid for sport and multifunctional recreational infrastructures: EUR 30 million or the total costs exceeding EUR 100 million per project; operating aid for sport infrastructure: EUR 2 million per infrastructure per year;

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(cc) for investment aid for local infrastructures: EUR 10 million or the total costs exceeding EUR 20 million for the same infrastructure;

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(dd) for aid for regional airports: the aid intensities and aid amounts laid down in Article 56a;

(ee) for aid for maritime ports: eligible costs of EUR 130 million per project (or EUR 150 million per project in a maritime port included in the work plan of a Core Network Corridor as referred to in Article 47 of Regulation (EU) No 1315/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 20 )); as regards dredging a project is defined as all dredging carried out within one calendar year; and

(ff) for aid for inland ports: eligible costs of EUR 40 million per project (or EUR 50 million per project in an inland port included in the work plan of a Core Network Corridor as referred to in Article 47 of Regulation (EU) No 1315/2013); as regards dredging a project is defined as all dredging carried out within one calendar year.

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2. The thresholds set out or referred to in paragraph 1 shall not be circumvented by artificially splitting up the aid schemes or aid projects.

Article 5

Transparency of aid

1. 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 any need to undertake a risk assessment (‘transparent aid’).

2. The following categories of aid shall be considered to be transparent:

(a) aid comprised in grants and interest rate subsidies;

(b) aid comprised in loans, where the gross grant equivalent has been calculated on the basis of the reference rate prevailing at the time of the grant;

(c) aid comprised in guarantees: (i) where the gross grant equivalent has been calculated on the basis of safe-harbour premiums laid down in a Commission notice; or (ii) where before the implementation of the measure, the methodology to calculate the gross grant equivalent of the guarantee has been accepted on the basis of the Commission Notice on the application of Articles 87 and 88 of the EC Treaty to State aid in the form of guarantees ( 21 ), or any successor notice, following notification of that methodology to the Commission under any regulation adopted by the Commission in the State aid area applicable at the time, and the approved methodology explicitly addresses the type of guarantee and the type of underlying transaction at stake in the context of the application of this Regulation;

(d) aid in the form of tax advantages, where the measure provides for a cap ensuring that the applicable threshold is not exceeded;

(e) aid for regional urban development if the conditions laid down in Article 16 are fulfilled;

(f) aid comprised in risk finance measures if the conditions laid down in Article 21 are fulfilled;

(g) aid for start-ups if the conditions laid down in Article 22 are fulfilled;

(h) aid for energy efficiency projects if the conditions laid down in Article 39 are fulfilled;

(i) aid in the form of premiums in addition to the market price if the conditions laid down in Article 42 are fulfilled;

(j) aid in the form of repayable advances, if the total nominal amount of the repayable advance does not exceed the thresholds applicable under this Regulation or if, before implementation of the measure, the methodology to calculate the gross grant equivalent of the repayable advance has been accepted following its notification to the Commission;

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(k) aid in the form of the sale or the lease of tangible assets below market rates where the value is established either by an independent expert evaluation prior to the transaction or by reference to a publicly available, regularly updated and generally accepted benchmark.

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Article 6

Incentive effect

1. This Regulation shall apply only to aid which has an incentive effect.

2. Aid shall be considered to have an incentive effect if the beneficiary has submitted a written application for the aid to the Member State concerned before work on the project or activity starts. The application for the aid shall contain at least the following information:

(a) undertaking's name and size;

(b) description of the project, including its start and end dates;

(c) location of the project;

(d) list of project costs;

(e) type of aid (grant, loan, guarantee, repayable advance, equity injection or other) and amount of public funding needed for the project;

3. Ad hoc aid granted to large enterprises shall be considered to have an incentive effect if, in addition to ensuring that the condition laid down in paragraph 2 is fulfilled, the Member State has verified, before granting the aid concerned, that documentation prepared by the beneficiary establishes that the aid will result in one or more of the following:

(a) in the case of regional investment aid: that a project is carried out, which would not have been carried out in the area concerned or would not have been sufficiently profitable for the beneficiary in the area concerned in the absence of the aid.

(b) in all other cases, that there is: — a material increase in the scope of the project/activity due to the aid, or — a material increase in the total amount spent by the beneficiary on the project/activity due to the aid, or — a material increase in the speed of completion of the project/activity concerned;

4. By way of derogation from paragraphs 2 and 3, measures in the form of tax advantages shall be deemed to have an incentive effect if the following conditions are fulfilled:

(a) the measure establishes a right to aid in accordance with objective criteria and without further exercise of discretion by the Member State; and

(b) the measure has been adopted and is in force before work on the aided project or activity has started, except in the case of fiscal successor schemes, where the activity was already covered by the previous schemes in the form of tax advantages.

5. By way of derogation from paragraphs 2, 3 and 4, the following categories of aid are not required to have or shall be deemed to have an incentive effect:

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(a) regional operating aid and regional urban development aid, where the relevant conditions laid down in Articles 15 and 16 are fulfilled,

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(b) aid for access to finance for SMEs, if the relevant conditions laid down in Articles 21 and 22 are fulfilled,

(c) aid for the recruitment of disadvantaged workers in the form of wage subsidies and aid for the employment of workers with disabilities in the form of wage subsidies, if the relevant conditions laid down in Articles 32 and 33 respectively are fulfilled,

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(d) aid compensating for the additional costs of employing workers with disabilities and aid for compensating the costs of assistance provided to disadvantaged workers, where the relevant conditions laid down in Articles 34 and 35 are fulfilled;

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(e) aid in the form of reductions in environmental taxes under Directive 2003/96/EC, if the conditions laid down in Article 44 of this Regulation are fulfilled;

(f) aid to make good the damage caused by certain natural disasters, if the conditions laid down in Article 50 are fulfilled;

(g) social aid for transport for residents of remote regions, if the conditions laid down in Article 51 are fulfilled;

(h) aid for culture and heritage conservation, if the conditions laid down in Article 53 are fulfilled.

Article 7

Aid intensity and eligible costs

1. For the purposes of calculating aid intensity and eligible costs, all figures used shall be taken before any deduction of tax or other charge. The eligible costs shall be supported by documentary evidence which shall be clear, specific and contemporary. ►M1 The amounts of eligible costs may be calculated in accordance with the simplified cost options set out in Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 22 ), provided that the operation is at least partly financed through a Union fund that allows the use of those simplified cost options and that the category of costs is eligible according to the relevant exemption provision. ◄

2. Where aid is granted in a form other than a grant, the aid amount shall be the gross grant equivalent of the aid.

3. ►M1 Aid payable in the future, including aid payable in several instalments, shall be discounted to its value at the moment it is granted. ◄ The eligible costs shall be discounted to their value at the moment the aid is granted. The interest rate to be used for discounting purposes shall be the discount rate applicable at the moment the aid is granted.

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5. Where aid is granted in the form of repayable advances which, in the absence of an accepted methodology to calculate their gross grant equivalent, are expressed as a percentage of the eligible costs and the measure provides that in case of a successful outcome of the project, as defined on the basis of a reasonable and prudent hypothesis, the advances will be repaid with an interest rate at least equal to the discount rate applicable at the moment the aid is granted, the maximum aid intensities laid down in Chapter III may be increased by 10 percentage points.

6. Where regional aid is granted in the form of repayable advances, the maximum aid intensities established in a regional aid map in force at the moment the aid is granted may not be increased.

Article 8

Cumulation

1. In determining whether the notification thresholds in Article 4 and the maximum aid intensities in Chapter III are respected, the total amount of State aid for the aided activity or project or undertaking shall be taken into account.

2. Where Union funding centrally managed by the institutions, agencies, joint undertakings or other bodies of the Union that is not directly or indirectly under the control of the Member State is combined with State aid, only the latter shall be considered for determining whether notification thresholds and maximum aid intensities or maximum aid amounts are respected, provided that the total amount of public funding granted in relation to the same eligible costs does not exceed the most favourable funding rate laid down in the applicable rules of Union law.

3. Aid with identifiable eligible costs exempted by this Regulation may be cumulated with:

(a) any other State aid, as long as those measures concern different identifiable eligible costs,

(b) any other State aid, in relation to the same eligible costs, partly or fully overlapping, only if such cumulation does not result in exceeding the highest aid intensity or aid amount applicable to this aid under this Regulation.

4. Aid without identifiable eligible costs exempted under Articles 21, 22 and 23 of this Regulation may be cumulated with any other State aid with identifiable eligible costs. Aid without identifiable eligible costs may be cumulated with any other State aid without identifiable eligible costs, up to the highest relevant total financing threshold fixed in the specific circumstances of each case by this or another block exemption regulation or decision adopted by the Commission.

5. State aid exempted under this Regulation shall not be cumulated with any de minimis aid in respect of the same eligible costs if such cumulation would result in an aid intensity exceeding those laid down in Chapter III of this Regulation.

6. By way of derogation from paragraph 3(b), aid in favour of workers with disabilities, as provided for in Articles 33 and 34 may be cumulated with other aid exempted under this Regulation in relation to the same eligible costs above the highest applicable threshold under this Regulation, provided that such cumulation does not result in an aid intensity exceeding 100 % of the relevant costs over any period for which the workers concerned are employed.

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7. By way of derogation from paragraphs 1 to 6, in determining whether the ceilings for regional operating aid in outermost regions, as set out in Article 15(4), are respected, only regional operating aid in outermost regions implemented under this Regulation shall be taken into account.

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Article 9

Publication and information

1. The Member State concerned shall ensure the publication on a comprehensive State aid website, at national or regional level of:

(a) the summary information referred to in Article 11 in the standardised format laid down in Annex II or a link providing access to it;

(b) the full text of each aid measure, as referred to in Article 11 or a link providing access to the full text;

(c) the information referred to in Annex III on each individual aid award exceeding EUR 500 000 .

As regards aid granted to European Territorial Cooperation projects, the information referred to in this paragraph shall be placed on the website of the Member State in which the Managing Authority concerned, as defined in Article 21 of Regulation (EC) No 1299/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council, is located. Alternatively, the participating Member States may also decide that each of them shall provide the information relating to the aid measures within their territory on the respective websites.

2. For schemes in the form of tax advantages, and for schemes covered by Article 16 and 21 ( 23 ) the conditions set out in paragraph 1(c) of this Article shall be considered fulfilled if Member States publish the required information on individual aid amounts in the following ranges (in EUR million):

0,5-1;

1-2;

2-5;

5-10;

10-30; and

30 and more.

3. For schemes under Article 51 of this Regulation, the publication obligations laid down in this article shall not apply to final consumers.

4. The information referred to in paragraph 1(c) of this Article shall be organised and accessible in a standardised manner, as described in Annex III, and shall allow for effective search and download functions. The information referred to in paragraph 1 shall be published within 6 months from the date the aid was granted, or for aid in the form of tax advantage, within 1 year from the date the tax declaration is due, and shall be available for at least 10 years from the date on which the aid was granted.

5. The Commission shall publish on its website:

(a) the links to the State aid websites referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article;

(b) the summary information referred to in Article 11.

6. Member States shall comply with the provisions of this Article at the latest within two years after the entry into force of this Regulation.







CHAPTER II

MONITORING

Article 10

Withdrawal of the benefit of the block exemption

Where a Member State grants aid allegedly exempted from the notification requirement under this Regulation without fulfilling the conditions set out in Chapters I to III, the Commission may, after having provided the Member State concerned with the possibility to make its views known, adopt a decision stating that all or some of the future aid measures adopted by the Member State concerned which would otherwise fulfil the requirements of this Regulation, are to be notified to the Commission in accordance with Article 108(3) of the Treaty. The measures to be notified may be limited to the measures granting certain types of aid or in favour of certain beneficiaries or aid measures adopted by certain authorities of the Member State concerned.

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Article 11

Reporting

1. Member States, or alternatively, in the case of aid granted to European Territorial Cooperation projects, the Member State in which the managing authority, referred to in Article 21 of Regulation (EU) No 1299/2013, is located, shall transmit to the Commission:

(a) via the Commission’s electronic notification system, the summary information about each aid measure exempted under this Regulation in the standardised format laid down in Annex II, together with a link providing access to the full text of the aid measure, including its amendments, within 20 working days following the entry into force of the aid measure;

(b) an annual report, pursuant to Commission Regulation (EC) No 794/2004 ( 24 ), in electronic form, on the application of this Regulation, containing the information indicated in Regulation (EC) No 794/2004, in respect of each whole year or each part of the year during which this Regulation applies.

2. Where, as a consequence of the extension of the application period of this Regulation until 31 December 2023 by Commission Regulation (EU) 2020/972 ( 25 ), a Member State plans to extend measures in respect of which the summary information was submitted to the Commission in accordance with paragraph 1 of this Article, that Member State shall update that summary information regarding the extension of those measures and communicate that update to the Commission within 20 working days following the entry into force of the act which extends the respective measure by the Member State.

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Article 12

Monitoring

1. In order to enable the Commission to monitor the aid exempted from notification by this Regulation, Member States, or alternatively, in the case of aid granted to European Territorial Cooperation projects, the Member State in which the Managing Authority is located, shall maintain detailed records with the information and supporting documentation necessary to establish that all the conditions laid down in this Regulation are fulfilled. Such records shall be kept for 10 years from the date on which the ad hoc aid was granted or the last aid was granted under the scheme.

2. In the case of schemes under which fiscal aid is granted automatically, such as those based on tax declarations of the beneficiaries, and where there is no ex ante verification that all compatibility conditions are met for each beneficiary, Member States shall regularly verify, at least ex post and on a sample basis, that all compatibility conditions are met, and draw the necessary conclusions. Member States shall maintain detailed records of the verifications for at least 10 years from the date of the controls.

3. The Commission may request, from each Member State, all the information and supporting documentation which the Commission considers necessary to monitor the application of this Regulation, including the information mentioned in paragraphs 1 and 2. The Member State concerned shall provide the Commission with the requested information and supporting documents within a period of 20 working days from receipt of the request or such longer period as may be fixed in the request.

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CHAPTER III

SPECIFIC PROVISIONS FOR DIFFERENT CATEGORIES OF AID







SECTION 1

Regional aid







Subsection A

Regional investment and operating aid

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Article 13

Scope of regional aid

This Section shall not apply to:

(a) aid which favours activities in the steel sector, the coal sector, the shipbuilding sector or the synthetic fibres sector;

(b) aid to the transport sector as well as the related infrastructure, and aid for energy generation, distribution and infrastructure, except for regional investment aid in outermost regions and regional operating aid schemes;

(c) regional aid in the form of schemes which are targeted at a limited number of specific sectors of economic activity; schemes aimed at tourism activities, broadband infrastructures or processing and marketing of agricultural products are not considered to be targeted at specific sectors of economic activity;

(d) regional operating aid granted to undertakings whose principal activities fall under Section K ‘Financial and insurance activities’ of the NACE Rev. 2 or to undertakings that perform intra-group activities whose principal activities fall under classes 70.10 ‘Activities of head offices’ or 70.22 ‘Business and other management consultancy activities’ of NACE Rev. 2.

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Article 14

Regional investment aid

1. Regional investment aid measures shall be compatible with the internal market within the meaning of Article 107(3) of the Treaty and shall be exempted from the notification requirement of Article 108(3) of the Treaty, provided that the conditions laid down in this Article and in Chapter I are fulfilled.

2. The aid shall be granted in assisted areas.

3. In assisted areas fulfilling the conditions of Article 107(3)(a) of the Treaty, the aid may be granted for an initial investment regardless of the size of the beneficiary. In assisted areas fulfilling the conditions of Article 107(3)(c) of the Treaty, the aid may be granted to SMEs for any form of initial investment. Aid to large enterprises shall only be granted for an initial investment in favour of new economic activity in the area concerned.

4. The eligible costs shall be as follows:

(a) investment costs in tangible and intangible assets;

(b) the estimated wage costs arising from job creation as a result of an initial investment, calculated over a period of two years; or

(c) a combination of points (a) and (b) not exceeding the amount of (a) or (b), whichever is higher.

5. The investment shall be maintained in the recipient area for at least five years, or at least three years in the case of SMEs, after completion of the investment. This shall not prevent the replacement of plant or equipment that has become outdated or broken within this period, provided that the economic activity is retained in the area concerned for the relevant minimum period.

6. The assets acquired shall be new except for SMEs and for the acquisition of an establishment. Costs related to the lease of tangible assets may be taken into account under the following conditions:

(a) for land and buildings, the lease must continue for at least five years after the expected date of completion of the investment project for large undertakings or three years in the case of SMEs;

(b) for plant or machinery, the lease must take the form of financial leasing and must contain an obligation for the beneficiary of the aid to purchase the asset upon expiry of the term of the lease.

►M1 In the case of acquisition of the assets of an establishment within the meaning of point 49 or point 51 of Article 2, only the costs of buying the assets from third parties unrelated to the buyer shall be taken into consideration. ◄ The transaction shall take place under market conditions. If aid has already been granted for the acquisition of assets prior to their purchase, the costs of those assets shall be deducted from the eligible costs related to the acquisition of an establishment. Where a member of the family of the original owner, or an employee, takes over a small enterprise, the condition that the assets be bought from third parties unrelated to the buyer shall be waived. The acquisition of shares does not constitute initial investment.

7. ►M1 For aid granted to large undertakings for a fundamental change in the production process, the eligible costs must exceed the depreciation of the assets linked to the activity to be modernised in the course of the preceding three fiscal years. ◄ For aid granted for a diversification of an existing establishment, the eligible costs must exceed by at least 200 % the book value of the assets that are reused, as registered in the fiscal year preceding the start of works.

8. Intangible assets are eligible for the calculation of investment costs if they fulfil the following conditions:

(a) they must be used exclusively in the establishment receiving the aid;

(b) they must be amortisable;

(c) they must be purchased under market conditions from third parties unrelated to the buyer; and

(d) they must be included in the assets of the undertaking receiving the aid and must remain associated with the project for which the aid is granted for at least five years or three years in the case of SMEs.

For large undertakings, costs of intangible assets are eligible only up to a limit of 50 % of the total eligible investment costs for the initial investment.

9. Where eligible costs are calculated by reference to the estimated wage costs as referred to in paragraph 4(b), the following conditions shall be fulfilled:

(a) the investment project shall lead to a net increase in the number of employees in the establishment concerned, compared with the average over the previous 12 months, meaning that any job lost shall be deducted from the apparent created number of jobs during that period;

(b) each post shall be filled within three years of completion of works; and

(c) each job created through the investment shall be maintained in the area concerned for a period of at least five years from the date the post was first filled, or three years in the case of SMEs.

10. Regional aid for broadband network development shall fulfil the following conditions:

(a) aid shall be granted only in areas where there is no network of the same category (either basic broadband or NGA) and where no such network is likely to be developed on commercial terms within three years from the decision to grant the aid; and

(b) the subsidised network operator must offer active and passive wholesale access under fair and non-discriminatory conditions including physical unbundling in the case of NGA networks; and

(c) aid shall be allocated on the basis of a competitive selection process.

11. Regional aid for research infrastructures shall be granted only if the aid is made conditional on giving transparent and non-discriminatory access to the aided infrastructure.

12. The aid intensity in gross grant equivalent shall not exceed the maximum aid intensity established in the regional aid map which is in force at the time the aid is granted in the area concerned. Where the aid intensity is calculated on the basis of paragraph 4(c), the maximum aid intens