Insider / ΚΥΠΕ
The EU Exemption Regulations are not widely used in Cyprus to raise funds, where “as a state we could have great advantages”, stressed the State Aid Control Commissioner Stella Michailidou.
“ We are, if not always the last, the penultimate in raising funds through the Exemption Regulations”, said Ms. Michailidou, citing data according to which the use of the Exemption Regulations in Cyprus reaches only 46%, while in the EU it reaches 97%.
Speaking before the Parliamentary Committee on Finance, which examined the budget of the State Aid Control Office for 2022 amounting to 569,000 euros, Ms. Michailidou said that the use of the regulations “will be helped indirectly” through the use of the Central State Aid System and Minor because now, as he explained, when all the competent authorities will register the aid where the important criterion is the cumulative amount which is 200,000 euros, except for agriculture and fishing, then easily through the electronic system when the amount is completed of 200,000 euros will be located immediately.
He stated that on September 23 it was announced that the first phase of the Archive will be implemented, which will be completed in 2024 and from January 1, 2025 will be fully operational.
Ms. Michailidou explained that now in order to locate the aid, information must be obtained from each competent authority “to get married, to discover it and to run to recover it, which is time consuming and ineffective”.
He also referred to the need to create a culture first but also continuous contact, information and guidance in relation to the use of the Exemption Regulations.
“The aim of our office is the training, the guidance, the opinion of all the competent authorities in order to create the culture of Exemption Regulations so that as a Member State we can follow the directives of the European Commission”, he stressed.
The Commissioner also referred to a revision of the regional map where “certain areas of the Member States are entitled to have additional regional aid”.
“We are trying to inform the various competent authorities through our presentations so that some people who want to make new investments can even choose the area to have additional regional aid,” he stressed.
Ms. Michailidou also said that the major decisions based on the Exemption Regulations that had been issued by the Office of the Registrar concerned the buses of Famagusta amounting to 13.5 million euros, while another 4 were extensions of existing decisions of the Office of the Registrar and aid amounting to 2 million euros that were compatible aid and were granted under the General Exemption Regulation to fire victims who met the criteria
