The Programme has two measures through which it can grant State aid in compliance with the State aid rules and regulations. A project partner can use one of these two.
Primarily, the Programme will frame State aid within Article 20 of the General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER)¹. The MA/JS and Norway have set up aid schemes for GBER Article 20. The full text of the schemes and information about GBER are available in the State aid section on the Programme portal. This article comprises the same eligibility rules as the Programme and allows support of up to EUR 2 million per project partner per project. It allows State aid relevant partners to act like partners not receiving State aid and to benefit from the same flexibility in the practical implementation of their activities. Please read chapter L to see what kind of changes in the project set-up are possible.
¹ COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 651/2014
In exceptional cases, State aid relevant project partners may request to receive the Programme co-financing on the basis of the de minimis Regulation². In Interreg Baltic Sea Region it is Germany, as the Member State hosting the Managing Authority, which grants de minimis aid. This implies that the Programme can grant de minimis aid only if the partner concerned has not yet received de minimis aid from Germany of more than EUR 200,000 (EUR 100,000 in cases of road freight transport for hire or reward) within a three-year period. The three-year period refers to the fiscal year during which the Programme grants the de minimis aid plus the previous two fiscal years.
² COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 1407/2013
De minimis aid cannot be granted to:
partners active in the fisheries and aquaculture sector
REGULATION (EU) No 1379/2013.
primary production of agricultural products;
export-related activities;
acquisition of road freight transport vehicles.
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.
During contracting, project partners have the chance to ask for application of the de minimis Regulation. In such a case, the project partners concerned have to provide de minimis declarations. If the Programme grants de minimis aid, for each partner that receives de minimis aid the MA/JS will send a de minimis award letter after the signing of the subsidy contract. The lead partner then has to forward each letter to the respective project partner.
For both above-mentioned measures, the maximum co-financing rates for State aid that the Programme grants are the co-financing rates in chapter B.7 of this Programme Manual.
