The European Commission has launched a targeted review of the General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER) which extends the GBER to national funds, combined with certain EU programmes managed centrally by the Commission. The concerned national funds would be exempted from the State Aid notification obligation.
The review aims to improve the interplay between EU funding rules and State aid rules and streamline State Aid control of national funds, in order to reduce unnecessary administrative burden and avoid lengthy procedures.
The EU programmes concerned include the InvestEU Fund, Horizon2020 and HorizonEurope, as well as European Territorial Cooperation projects (ETC, also called Interreg).
In its contribution, the European Sea Ports Organisation welcomes the Commission’s initiative to decrease the administrative burden, but regrets that national co-funding in combination with the Connecting Europe Facility has not been included in the review.
Source: ESPO website