STATE AID State Aid Branch BIS 1 Managing

STATE AID State Aid Branch, BIS 1) Managing State Aid in the UK 2) State Aid Modernisation – Main changes

2 Role of BIS State aid branch (SAB) • Overall responsibility for State aid policy and practice in UK (except transport and agriculture rules) • Single point of contact for all UK Government contacts and DG Competition. Activities • Lead/coordinate UK response to State aid policy proposals • Advice to Government officials on designing policy and aid schemes, assessing and managing State aid risk. • Advice and support on notifications and notification process • Coordinate and advise on responses to State aid complaints • Compile annual UK State aid reports • Website advice and guidance notes, courses and seminars

3 State Aid Modernisation: Package of measures • New guidelines and GBER. • Revision of the Procedural & Enabling Regulations. • Simplification and streamlining: more aid block exempt. Common assessment principles for notified aid. • BUT increased responsibilities for Member States on monitoring and transparency of aid. • More Commission monitoring of aid given under GBER and approved measures.

4 Procedural Regulation • Complainants now need to be “interested parties”. • Issue for SMEs (in particular) in providing evidence? • Commission able to seek information from the market (in agreement with MS). • Possibility of sectoral investigations.

5 Transparency • Transparency requirements: publicly accessible register of individual awards of aid. • Threshold of € 500 k. • Working with the Commission on what the interface will look like – how will companies and public administrations be able to interrogate the data? • Tax issues.

6 Evaluation • New requirement for some aid schemes under the new GBER and the new guidelines • Evaluation's role to improve knowledge about impact of aid schemes • Tool to improve future policy design and potentially future rules What is required? • Need to clearly identify the objectives of the schemes and the indicators for their measurement. • Focus should be on the incentive effect, but impacts on markets and competition also need to be addressed. • Issue of timing for ex-ante evaluation plans for GBER schemes.

7 The new assessment cycle

8 And finally…GBER: Main changes • See our summary of the changes: http: //goo. gl/k. Ed. JEp • Increased notification thresholds • Addition of new aid measures and broadening of existing block exemption categories • Help with interpretation of GBER: Ability for public authorities to submit questions to Commission via BIS. Will be able to view questions from other MS and response. • Incentive effect requirements clarified: application form plus additional evidence for large enterprises.