ANNEX IISupplementary provisions
ANNEX II ‘ANNEX III STANDARDISED REPORTING FORMAT FOR EXISTING STATE AID (This format covers all sectors) The Commission shall, by 1 March each year, send to the Member States, through a dedicated reporting tool, the State aid cases whose expenditure must be reported. Member States shall review the completeness of the cases provided by the Commission and inform the Commission of any missing cases by providing the corresponding aid numbers. The reports will be automatically generated in the dedicated reporting tool. Member States shall complete the reports with the expenditure information and validate the cases, which will be then returned to the Commission by 30 June of the year in question. This will enable the Commission to publish State aid data in year t for the reporting period t-1 ( 1 ) . The bulk of the information in the dedicated platform shall be pre-completed by the Commission on the basis of data provided at the time of approval of the aid. Member States shall be required to check and, where necessary, modify the details for each scheme or individual aid, and to add the annual expenditure for the latest year (t-1). In addition, Member States shall indicate which schemes have expired or for which all payments have stopped and whether or not a scheme is co-financed by Union Funds. Information such as the objective of the aid, the sector to which the aid is directed, etc shall refer to the time at which the aid is approved and not to the final beneficiaries of the aid. For example, the primary objective of a scheme which, at the time the aid is approved, is exclusively earmarked for small and medium-sized enterprises shall be aid for small and medium-sized enterprises. However, another scheme for which all aid is ultimately awarded to small and medium-sized enterprises shall not be regarded as such if, at the time the aid is approved, the scheme is open to all enterprises. The following information shall be included in the reports: 1. Title 2. Aid number 3. All previous aid numbers (for example, following the renewal of a scheme) 4. Expiry Member States should indicate those schemes which have expired or for which all payments have stopped. 5. Co-financing Although measures based solely on Union funding itself is excluded, total State aid for each Member State shall include aid measures that are co-financed by Union funding. In order to identify which schemes are co-financed and estimate how much such aid represents in relation to overall State aid, Member States are required to indicate whether or not the scheme is co-financed and if so the percentage of aid that is co-financed. If this is not possible, an estimate of the total amount of aid that is co-financed shall be provided. 6. Sector The sectoral classification shall be based largely on NACE ( 2 ) at the [three-digit level]. 7. Primary objective 8. Secondary objective A secondary objective is one for which, in addition to the primary objective, the aid (or a distinct part of it) was earmarked at the time the aid was approved. For example, a scheme for which the primary objective is research and development may have as a secondary objective small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) if the aid or part of it is earmarked exclusively for SMEs. 9. Region(s) Aid may, at the time of approval, be exclusively earmarked for a specific region or group of regions. Where appropriate, a distinction should be made between the Article 107(3)a regions and the Article 107(3)c regions. If the aid is earmarked for one particular region, this should be specified at NUTS ( 3 ) level II. 10. Aid instrument 11. Type of aid A distinction shall be made between three categories: Scheme, Individual application of a scheme, Individual aid awarded outside of a scheme (ad hoc aid). 12. Expenditure Information referred to in points 1, 2, 3 and 6 to 11 shall be pre-completed by the Commission and checked by the Member States. Points 4, 5 and 12 shall be completed by the Member States. As a general rule, figures should be expressed in terms of actual expenditure (or actual revenue foregone in the case of tax =measures). Where payments are not available, commitments or budget appropriations shall be provided and flagged accordingly. Separate figures shall be provided for each aid instrument within a scheme or individual aid (e.g. grant, soft loans, etc.). Figures shall be expressed in the national currency in application at the time of the reporting period. Expenditure shall be provided for t-1. Additionally, expenditure reported in the previous years can be updated up to 6 years in the past. ’ ( 1 ) t is the year in which the data are requested. ( 2 ) NACE rev.2.1 is the Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Union. ( 3 ) NUTS is the nomenclature of territorial units for statistical purposes in the European Union.