NOTAT
26. maj 2020
20/06830-6
HT.5594
The Danish Governments’ response to the consultation on
the prolongation and amendment of the General Block Exemption
Regulation (GBER) the De minimis regulation and various guidelines
The Danish Government welcomes the opportunity to comment on the pro-
posal consisting of prolongation and amendments of the GBER, de minimis
regulation and a series of guidelines and communications.
Prolongation
The Danish Government is positive regarding the suggested prolongation
of both the GBER and the de minimis regulation until the end of 2023 and
the suggested prolongation of the mentioned guidelines and communica-
tions until the end of 2021. The Danish Government acknowledges the need
for the prolongations in light of the current fitness check and in order to
provide legal certainty for Member States.
Undertakings in difficulties
COVID-19 has put a great number of otherwise healthy undertakings under
economic pressure. Therefore, the Danish Government is also generally
positive regarding the amendments entailing that undertakings which were
not in difficulty as of 31
st
of December 2019 will not be excluded from
GBER and the mentioned guidelines if the undertakings were in difficulty
in a following period. However, the Danish Government is not convinced
of the necessity and reasoning for suggesting such a long period, i.e. 1
st
of
January 2020 to 30
th
of June 2021.
Temporary suspension of the safeguard in GBER against regional aid
with relocation effects
According to the proposal the Commission intends to suspend the safe-
guard against relocation of undertakings and jobs in GBER article 14(16)
from January 1
st
to June 30
th
2021.
If follows from the draft, that in Article 14, paragraph 16, the following
sentence is added:
“Any loss of jobs, in the same or similar activity in one
of the initial establishments of the beneficiary in the EEA, occurring be-
tween 1 January 2020 and 30 June 2021, shall not be considered a trans-
fer.”