The ceiling of de minimis aid offered by the state to enterprises will be raised to the EU level. This way, the value of this will grow from 2 million lei to 5 million lei per beneficiary, regardless of the form of this, for a three-year period. In the case of enterprises, the total value of aid will not exceed 10 million lei. This is provided in a bill that was given a first reading by Parliament, IPN reports.

The legislation is to be supplemented with new definitions stipulated in the EU case law. At the same time, the bill stipulates the conditions that are to be respected by suppliers on the provision of de minimis aid so that the support offered to enterprises does not significantly distort the competition environment.

The period for investigating cases of violation of the legislation on state aid will be extended to 18 months of the initiation of the procedure. Another novelty refers to the method of calculating the interest rate on the state aid provided illegally, which is to be recovered.

The bill modifies the date when the annual report on the offered state aid is to be presented to the Competition Council - by December 31 each year.

The bill drafted by the Competition Council is to be given a final reading by Parliament.