Press Release: State aid: Commission improves procedural rules

The European Commission has acted to clarify its rules on the notification of state aids and ensure faster procedures by amending the Regulation which establishes complementary procedural provisions for the application of the EC Treaty state aid rules (the so-called "Implementing Regulation"). The modifications will inter alia introduce additional notification forms and require the compulsory use of an electronic notification system and a secured e-mail system by 1 July 2008. Moreover, the new general notification form will provide additional information to the Commission allowing quicker decision-making procedures. The new Regulation takes account of comments received from a public consultation in the course of 2007. This proposal is adopted within the context of the State Aid Action Plan (see IP/05/680 and MEMO/05/195), designed to simplify the state aid rules, to refine the economic analysis of subsidies and to allow the Commission to concentrate its enforcement on the most distortive cases.