Commission notice pursuant to Article 88(2) of the EC Treaty to other Member States and interested parties

State aid C 25/2006 (ex E 1/2006) — Guidelines on national regional aid for 2007-2013 — appropriate measures — Germany

By the following letter dated 22 November 2006 the Commission informed Germany of its decision to close the procedure under Article 88(2) of the EC Treaty.

(1)	‘On 21 December 2005, the Commission adopted the Guidelines on national regional aid for the period 2007-2013.

(2)

By letter dated 6 March 2006 (D(06)222), the Commission, acting in accordance with Article 88(1) of the EC Treaty and the procedure laid down in Articles 17 and 18 of Regulation (EC) 659/1999 (1), proposed the following appropriate measures to all Member States and invited them to give their explicit and unconditional agreement:

(a)

Without prejudice to Article 10(2) of Regulation (EC) 70/2001 on the application of Articles 87 and 88 of the EC Treaty to State aid for small and medium-sized enterprises, as amended by Regulation (EC) 364/2004 and to Article 11(2) of Regulation (EC) 2204/2002 on the application of Articles 87 and 88 of the EC Treaty to State aid for employment, to limit the application in time of all existing regional aid schemes to aid to be granted on or before 31 December 2006.

(b)

Where environment aid schemes allow regional investment aid to be granted for environmental investments pursuant to footnote 29 of the Community guidelines on State aid for environmental protection, to amend the relevant schemes in order to ensure that aid may only be granted after 31 December 2006 if it complies with the new regional aid map in force on the date the aid is granted.

(c)

Member States shall as necessary amend other existing aid schemes in order to ensure that any regional bonuses such as those allowed for training aid, aid for research and development or environment aid may only be granted after 31 December 2006 in areas which are eligible for support under Article 87(3)(a) or (c) in accordance with the regional aid maps adopted by the Commission in force on the date the aid is granted.

(3)

By letter dated 9 May 2006, registered at the Commission on 10 May 2006 (A/33589), your government only partially accepted the appropriate measures as your Government refused them as far as they concerned regional aid schemes involving State guarantees, public loans and public participations (see above 2.a).

(4)

Consequently, the Commission initiated the procedure laid down in Article 88 (2) EC by decision of 16 June 2006. This decision was published in the original language in the Official Journal of the European Union (2) together with a meaningful summary in all official languages with an invitation to interested parties to submit their comments but no reaction was received.

(5)	However, by letter of 20 October 2006, the German authorities informed the Commission that, after all, they give their explicit and unconditional agreement to the proposed appropriate measures.

(6)	Subsequently, the formal investigation procedure has become without object.

(7)	Therefore, the Commission has decided to close the formal investigation procedure.

(8)	The Commission reminds the German authorities that, pursuant to Article 19 (1) of Regulation No 659/1999, they are bound by their acceptance to implement the appropriate measures.’