Information communicated by Member States regarding State aid granted under Commission Regulation (EC) No 1857/2006 on the application of Articles 87 and 88 of the Treaty to State aid to small and medium-sized enterprises active in the production of agricultural products and amending Regulation (EC) No 70/2001
Date: 2010-08-12
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: Belgium, France, Spain, State aid, aid to undertakings, animal production, control of State aid, damage, natural disaster, small and medium-sized enterprises








C_2010218EN.01000401.xml










12.8.2010   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 218/4





Information communicated by Member States regarding State aid granted under Commission Regulation (EC) No 1857/2006 on the application of Articles 87 and 88 of the Treaty to State aid to small and medium-sized enterprises active in the production of agricultural products and amending Regulation (EC) No 70/2001
2010/C 218/04
Aid No: XA 91/10
Member State: Belgium
Region: Vlaanderen
Title of aid scheme or name of company receiving an individual aid: Vlaamse Bedrijfspluimvee- en Konijnenhouders vzw
Legal basis: Decreet van 18 december 2009 houdende de algemene uitgavenbegroting van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap voor het begrotingsjaar 2010
Koninklijk besluit van 2 juni 1998 betreffende de zoötechnische en genealogische voorschriften voor de verbetering en de instandhouding van de pluimvee- en konijnenrassen
Ministerieel besluit van 17 maart 2005 houdende de erkenning en subsidiëring van organisaties in het kader van de aanmoediging en de verbetering van de pluimvee- en konijnenfokkerij
Ministerieel besluit houdende de toekenning van een facultatieve subsidie aan de vzw Vlaamse Bedrijfspluimvee en Konijnenhouders voor het werkingsjaar 2010
Annual expenditure planned under the scheme or overall amount of individual aid granted to the company: EUR 0,029 million
Maximum aid intensity: The maximum aid intensity is 100 % to cover the costs of consultancy services provided by third parties and the fees for services which do not constitute a continuous or periodic activity and do not relate to the enterprise’s usual operating expenditure, such as routine tax consultancy services, regular legal services or advertising.
Date of implementation: Aid may be granted as from 1 June and, at the earliest, 15 days after submission of an application.
Aid can be granted by means of an implementing decree. These decrees are drawn up annually. A draft implementation decree has yet to be drawn up and will include a ‘standstill clause’.
Duration of scheme or individual aid award: The grant period will run until 31 December 2010.
Objective of aid: The registered association Vlaamse Bedrijfspluimvee- en Konijnenhouders vzw (VBPKH) has indicated that it will use the aid to provide consultancy services to enterprises active in primary production in the poultry and rabbit sectors with regard to the legislation on the recognition of specialist poultry farms, the performance of rabbit bloodlines and the identification and registration of holdings, poultry diseases and waste.
The aid is to be granted under Article 15 of Regulation (EC) No 1857/2006 and fulfils the conditions thereof.
Article 15(2)(c): concerning consultancy services provided by third parties, the fees for services which do not constitute a continuous or periodic activity nor relate to the enterprise’s usual operating expenditure, such as routine tax consultancy services, regular legal services or advertising.
Sector(s) concerned: Livestock
Name and address of the granting authority: 





Departement Landbouw en Visserij




Duurzame Landbouwontwikkeling




Ellips 6e verdieping




Koning Albert II laan 35, bus 40




1030 Bruxelles/Brussel




BELGIQUE/BELGIË




Website: http://lv.vlaanderen.be/nlapps/docs/default.asp?id=134
Other information: —


Jules VAN LIEFFERINGE

Secretaris-generaal



Aid No: XA 96/10
Member State: France
Region: Department of Bouches-du-Rhône
Title of aid scheme or name of company receiving an individual aid: Aide au nettoyage des serres détruites par les chutes de neige du 8 au 10 janvier 2010 (Bouches-du-Rhône)
Legal basis: Articles L 1511-2, L 3231-2 et 3232-1 du code général des collectivités territoriales; arrêté du 7 mai 2010 du ministre de l’alimentation, de l’agriculture et de la pêche de reconnaissance du caractère de calamité naturelle; délibération du Conseil général des Bouches-du-Rhône
Annual expenditure planned under the scheme or overall amount of individual aid granted to the company: EUR 500 000 maximum (for one year only)
Maximum aid intensity: 20 % to 40 %
Date of implementation: 2010, from the date of publication of the identification number of the exemption request on the website of the Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development.
Duration of scheme or individual aid award: The year 2010
Objective of aid: The measure is covered by Article 11 (‘Aid for losses due to adverse climatic events’) of Regulation (EC) No 1857/2006.
Small and medium-sized enterprises engaged in agricultural production using greenhouses in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, who suffered significant losses due to the snow between 8 and 10 January 2010 and who are insured, will receive insurance payouts to rebuild and renovate the greenhouses or those parts of them that were damaged or destroyed by the snow. However, these payouts will only partially cover the costs of rebuilding or repairing the structures and do not cover the one-off costs involved in taking on temporary staff to clean collapsed or shattered greenhouses prior to the renovation itself.
For this reason, the Departmental Council wishes to provide assistance to greenhouse operators in affected districts, whose facilities were seriously damaged by the snow.
This measure fulfils the dual objective of making facilities safe and laying the ground for restoring production capacity and preserving businesses that generate many jobs.
Several measures will be put in place primarily for the benefit of producers (individuals or companies) on condition that they submit a declaration of damages from an insurer or expert or any other competent body that they called in.
For glasshouses, an external company must be called in since, given the damages, security conditions require mechanical clearance. Part of the cost of clearing glass and metal débris will be covered up to a maximum of 40 % by State aid, for eligible costs of EUR 10/m2 exclusive of tax with a ceiling of EUR 20 000 per business.
Eligible expenses will be reduced by any amount received under an insurance policy covering the same services and by costs that are not due to the weather phenomenon recognised as a natural disaster.
For cold and hot shelters, since it is essential to restore production capacity (and thereby preserve jobs in an at-risk sector that has already suffered from the effects of the economic crisis and that alone accounts for 100 FTE/year), two types of measure, depending on the individual situation, will be taken; they will be subject to the authorised ceiling of 40 % for State funding:
for clearing operations and restoration of greenhouses and tunnels (frame and plastic) carried out directly by the greenhouse operator and the operator's staff, the aid will be provided at a rate of EUR 1,35/m2 exclusive of tax up to a ceiling of EUR 9 375/business exclusive of tax, i.e. a maximum aid payment of EUR 3 750/business exclusive of tax,
for greenhouse operators unable to have the work done by their own staff, or who do not have any staff, the aid will cover part of the cost of the labour provided by a group of employers or a specialised firm that reintegrates unemployed workers, up to a ceiling of 625 hours of cleaning per business, i.e. a maximum of EUR 3 750 per business, making up 40 % of an hourly cost of EUR 15 maximum.
Eligible expenses will again be reduced by any amount received under an insurance policy covering the same services and by costs that are not due to the weather phenomenon recognised as a natural disaster.
The payment of aid for work carried out by the greenhouse operators will be subject to the submission of declarations detailing the work and signed by the operator.
In glasshouses, the areas are estimated at 25 000 m2 and in plastic tunnels at 250 000 m2.
Sector(s) concerned: SMEs engaged in agricultural production in greenhouses in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône in the districts covered by the above-mentioned decree recognising an agricultural disaster
Name and address of the granting authority: 





Monsieur le Président du Conseil général




Direction de l’agriculture et du tourisme




Hôtel du Département




52 avenue de Saint-Just




13256 Marseille Cedex 20




FRANCE




Website: http://www.cg13.fr/amenagements/agriculture/agriculture.html
Other information: —
Aid No: XA 99/10
Member State: France
Region: Département du Loir-et-Cher
Title of aid scheme or name of company receiving an individual aid: Aide à la reconstruction des abris contre le froid des maraîchers, fortement endommagés suite au passage de la tempête Cynthia dans la nuit du 27 au 28 février 2010
Legal basis: Articles L 1511-1 et suivants, article L 4211-1 du code général des collectivités territoriales
Délibération du Conseil général de Loir-et-Cher
Annual expenditure planned under the scheme or overall amount of individual aid granted to the company: EUR 200 000 maximum
Maximum aid intensity: From 10 % to 45 %. The rate of assistance will be measured so as to respect the upper limit of public aid, taking into account possible public aid allocated by other bodies and the possibility of an insurance payout.
Date of implementation: From receipt of the acknowledgement of receipt showing the identification number of the measure and publication of the summary of the measure on the Commission’s website.
Duration of scheme or individual aid award: Until 31 December 2010
Objective of aid: The objective of this measure will be to provide aid for reconstructing or restoring covers against the cold that were severely damaged following the storm Xynthia during the night of 27 to 28 February 2010.
Hoops were twisted or broken, tarpaulins split or blown away. Faced with the severity of the harsh cold that still persisted at the beginning of March, market gardeners, mainly strawberry and white asparagus producers, had to urgently re-cover their crops, thereby incurring heavy and unanticipated expenses.
The department of Loire-et-Cher will thus provide aid of a maximum of 40 % of the purchase costs for hoops (maximum 45 % in the less-favoured area), with the costs being estimated at EUR 4 000 per hectare. This measure will concern a maximum of 50 farms.
An aid scheme for farmers, who were victims of marine floods caused by the storm Xynthia on 28 February 2010 in the departments of Vendée, Charente-Maritime and in the north of Gironde, based on points 120 to 123 of the agricultural guidelines, was submitted by the French authorities and approved by the Commission on 17 June 2010 (scheme N 209/10).
The aid project put forward by the Conseil général of Loir-et-Cher is, itself based on Article 11 of the Agricultural Exemption Regulation relating to adverse weather conditions, since in this department, the violent storm had the character of an adverse climatic event which can be assimilated to the examples given in Article 2(8) of the Regulation: ‘weather conditions such as frost, hail, ice, rain or drought which destroy more than 30 % …’. In the past, the department of Drôme had had the Commission register the schemes XA 302/08 and XA 53/09 in similar circumstances.
A very clear differentiation must be made between the events registered in the above-mentioned areas of the three departments of the Atlantic coast, on the one hand, and in Loir-et-Cher, on the other.
In Vendée, Charente-Maritime and the north of Gironde and only there, the ground was flooded and the soil degraded, causing long-term damage. The extent, the gravity and the specificity of the damage caused to the soil by the storm Xynthia led to the provision of aid under points 120 and following of the agricultural guidelines. Like earthquakes, avalanches and landslides, floods are considered to come under the ‘natural disasters’, referred to, with ‘exceptional occurrences’, in Article 107 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
The rest of the French territory was not spared by this violent storm. In the department of Loir-et-Cher, the storm also caused considerable damage to the premises of market gardeners, who will incur heavy expenses to replace that equipment.
There are no similarities between the expenditure for which the aid is intended in the notified and approved scheme (N 209/10) and the exempted scheme, nor at the level of the beneficiaries, who are farmers from very different regions. There is therefore no risk of the accumulation of aid between the two schemes.
This aid will be paid exclusively to:
farms whose size does not exceed that of an SME as defined in Community Law (cf. Annex I to Commission Regulation (EC) No 800/2008 of 6 August 2008, OJ L 214 of 9 August 2008),
farms that are enterprises active in the primary production of agricultural products,
and farms that are not enterprises in difficulty within the meaning of the Community guidelines on State aid for the rescue and restructuring of companies in difficulty (OJ C 244 of 1 October 2004).
Sector(s) concerned: Market garden enterprises (SMEs)
Name and address of the granting authority: 





Conseil général de Loir-et-Cher




Service Agriculture-Environnement




Place de la République




41020 Blois Cedex




FRANCE




Website: http://le-loir-et-cher.fr/jahia/cg41/Accueil/toutes-les-actualites-du-conseil-general/aide_exceptionnelle_exploitations_maraicheres.html
Other information: —
Aid No: XA 102/10
Member State: Spain
Region: Valenciana
Title of aid scheme or name of company receiving an individual aid: Ayuda al Centro Integrado Apícola Valenciano
Legal basis: Resolución de__ de____ de 2010, de la Consellera de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentación, por la que se concede una subvención nominativa al Centro Integrado Apícola Valenciano.
Annual expenditure planned under the scheme or overall amount of individual aid granted to the company: EUR 40 000 in 2010
Maximum aid intensity: 100 % of eligible expenditure
Date of implementation: From the date on which the identification number of the exemption request is published on the website of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development.
Duration of scheme or individual aid award: During 2010
Objective of aid: To provide the following services to Valencian beekeepers and their organisations:
tests, health checks and other methods of detecting diseases in beehives,
testing and systems to ensure compliance with the marketing standards for honey and other beekeeping products.
The eligible costs covered by the aid are those referred to in the following Articles of Commission Regulation (EC) No 1857/2006 of 15 December 2006 on the application of Articles 87 and 88 of the Treaty to State aid to small and medium-sized enterprises active in the production of agricultural products and amending Regulation (EC) No 70/2001 (OJ L 358, 16.12.2006, p. 3):
Article 10, health checks granted in kind by means of the subsidised services,
Article 14(2)(b), implementing systems to ensure authenticity and compliance with marketing standards.
Sector(s) concerned: Beekeeping sector: owners of Valencian bee farms and their organisations
Name and address of the granting authority: 





Conselleria de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentación




Amadeo de Saboya, 2




46010 Valencia




ESPAÑA




Website: http://www.agricultura.gva.es/especiales/ayudas_agrarias/pdf/ciav2010.pdf
Other information: —
Aid No: XA 103/10
Member State: Spain
Region: Cataluña
Title of aid scheme or name of company receiving an individual aid: Ayudas en forma de préstamos para el fomento de las inversions necesarias para el cumplimiento de las normas mínimas de reciente introducción en materia de bienestar animal
Legal basis: Proyecto de Orden AAR/xxx/2010, por la que se aprueban las bases reguladoras de la línea de préstamos para fomentar las inversiones necesarias para el cumplimiento de las normas mínimas, de reciente introducción, en materia de bienestar animal, y se convoca la línea correspondiente al año 2010.
Annual expenditure planned under the scheme or overall amount of individual aid granted to the company: EUR 10 million for each year of the aid scheme
Maximum aid intensity: As provided for in Article 4 of Regulation (EC) No 1857/2006, gross aid intensity must not exceed 75 % in less-favoured areas or 60 % elsewhere.
In addition, the maximum amount of aid for any given undertaking over a period of three financial years is EUR 400 000. This may rise to EUR 500 000 if the investment is made in a less-favoured area.
Date of implementation: Expected date: 1 June 2010 and, in any event, once the Commission has given the scheme an identification number and published the summary on the Internet, in accordance with Article 20 of Commission Regulation (EC) No 1857/2006.
Duration of scheme or individual aid award: Until 31 December 2012
Objective of aid: The objective is to grant aid to livestock farmers who have to adapt their farms to bring them into conformity with recently introduced legislation, the investments being aimed at improving animal welfare.
Eligible costs: In accordance with point 1(2) of Annex 1 to Order AAR/xxx/2010, investments undertaken in order to comply with recently adopted legislation on the animal welfare aspects of housing and other facilities constitute eligible costs. Eligible investments are listed below:
Beneficiaries: Natural or legal persons who are owners or holders of farms in Cataluña and are engaged in the primary production of agricultural products in any agricultural sector may apply for this aid, provided they meet the requirement of being a small or medium-sized enterprise.
Form of aid: Interest subsidy
Sector(s) concerned: NACE Code A.01: Crop and animal production, hunting and related service activities
Name and address of the granting authority: 





Departamento de Agricultura, Alimentación y Acción Rural




Gran Vía de les Corts Catalanes, 612-614




08007 Barcelona




ESPAÑA




Website: http://www20.gencat.cat/docs/DAR/DE_Departament/DE03_Normativa/DE03_04_Ajuts_estat/2010/Documents/Fitxers_estatics/inversions_benestar_animal.pdf
Other information: —