Europaudvalget 2019-20
EUU Alm.del Bilag 681
Offentligt
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NOTAT
26. maj 2020
20/06830-6
HT.5594
The Danish Governments’ response to the consultation on
the prolongation and amendment of the General Block Exemption
Regulation (GBER) the De minimis regulation and various guidelines
The Danish Government welcomes the opportunity to comment on the pro-
posal consisting of prolongation and amendments of the GBER, de minimis
regulation and a series of guidelines and communications.
Prolongation
The Danish Government is positive regarding the suggested prolongation
of both the GBER and the de minimis regulation until the end of 2023 and
the suggested prolongation of the mentioned guidelines and communica-
tions until the end of 2021. The Danish Government acknowledges the need
for the prolongations in light of the current fitness check and in order to
provide legal certainty for Member States.
Undertakings in difficulties
COVID-19 has put a great number of otherwise healthy undertakings under
economic pressure. Therefore, the Danish Government is also generally
positive regarding the amendments entailing that undertakings which were
not in difficulty as of 31
st
of December 2019 will not be excluded from
GBER and the mentioned guidelines if the undertakings were in difficulty
in a following period. However, the Danish Government is not convinced
of the necessity and reasoning for suggesting such a long period, i.e. 1
st
of
January 2020 to 30
th
of June 2021.
Temporary suspension of the safeguard in GBER against regional aid
with relocation effects
According to the proposal the Commission intends to suspend the safe-
guard against relocation of undertakings and jobs in GBER article 14(16)
from January 1
st
to June 30
th
2021.
If follows from the draft, that in Article 14, paragraph 16, the following
sentence is added:
“Any loss of jobs, in the same or similar activity in one
of the initial establishments of the beneficiary in the EEA, occurring be-
tween 1 January 2020 and 30 June 2021, shall not be considered a trans-
fer.”
EUU, Alm.del - 2019-20 - Bilag 681: Notat og høringssvar om ændring og forlængelse af den Generelle Gruppefritagelsesforordning (GBER), de minimis-forordningen
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Thus, with the proposal it will in the period from January 1
st
2020 to June
30
th
2021 be possible to use regional investment aid to relocate the same or
similar activity from one EU/EEA member state to another EU/EEA mem-
ber state in which the aided investment takes place.
While the Danish Government acknowledge the economic and financial
consequences that the COVID-19 outbreak has on undertakings across Eu-
rope, we do not agree that this should lead to a suspension of the GBER's
safeguard against state aid being used to relocate jobs and undertakings in
the EU/EEA.
The Danish Government finds that the clear message from the Commission
should be that there is no European value added, if regional investment aid
or aid in general
is allowed to move jobs around Europe financed by
the tax payers - be it national state aid or EU structural funds. The aim must
be to create more innovation, economic growth and jobs based on fair com-
petition on the single market. This fundamental policy should apply irre-
spective of the COVID-19 situation.
Therefore, the Danish Government strongly recommend that the relocation
commitment in article 14(16) as a condition to receive regional investment
aid should not be altered with reference to the exceptional circumstances
of COVID-19.
If the intention with the amendment is that it will only relate to
‘relocation
commitments’ already given,
but which the company is unable to fulfil be-
cause of unexpected layoffs due to COVID-19, we believe that for the pur-
pose of legal certainty this should be clear in the proposal of article 14 (16).
We do not find that the proposal as it stands is isolated to only cover this
particular situation.