European funds for technology SMEs (IMM-Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises)

In the Official Gazette, Part I no. 614 of 23 June 2022 was published the Order of the Ministry of Investment and European Projects no.918 /2118/2022 for the approval of the de minimis aid scheme “De minimis aid to support the development of innovative TIC products and services created by SMEs” under priority axis 2, investment priority 2b “Development of TIC products and services, e-commerce and TIC demand”, action 2.2.1 “Supporting the increase of added value generated by the TIC sector and innovation in the field through the development of clusters”, call 3, of the Competitiveness Operational Programme 2014-2020

The mentioned minimis aid scheme applies from the date of its publication in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, until the exhaustion of the allocated budget, but no later than 31 December 2022. The aid shall be paid until 31 December 2023, within the limit of the budget allocated to the de minimis aid scheme.

The scheme is financed by non-reimbursable external funds from the Competitiveness Operational Programme.

It is important to note that this de minimis aid scheme is not subject to the obligation of notification to the European Commission, in accordance with the provisions of Regulation (EU) No 1407/2013.

Aid under this de minimis aid scheme is granted only under the conditions and criteria set out in this de minimis aid scheme, within the limit of the available budget.

The provider of de minimis aid is the Ministry of European Investment and Projects through the Managing Authority of the Competitiveness Operational Programme (AMPOC).

               Thus, the objective of the de minimis aid scheme is to finance a series of activities necessary for the implementation of projects ensuring the development of innovative TIC products/services/applications with applicability in the following areas:

a) IoT, smart city/village/agriculture etc.;

b) cyber security;

c) big data;

d) artificial intelligence/Blockchain/Virtual Reality (VR)/Augmented Reality (AR);

e) electronic transactions;

f) e-government/e-administration/e-health/e-education;

g) industrial digitisation (automation, robotisation).

The activities carried out must be directly related to the development and implementation of projects financed under this de minimis aid scheme.

It is important to note that the de minimis aid measure applies in all development regions of Romania.

The support is granted to beneficiaries carrying out activities in the following areas, with the corresponding CAEN codes:

According to MIPE Order no.918//2022, no support is granted in the following cases:

 a) aid granted to enterprises operating in the fisheries and aquaculture sectors as covered by Regulation (EC) No 1379/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2013 on the common organisation of the markets in fishery and aquaculture products, amending Council Regulations (EC) No 1184/2006 and (EC) No 1224/2009 and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 104/2000, published in the Official Journal of the European Union, L 354 of 28 December 2013;

b) aid granted to enterprises active in the primary production of agricultural products;

 c) aid granted to undertakings active in the processing and marketing of agricultural products in the following cases:

i. where the amount of the aid is determined on the basis of the price or quantity of such products purchased from primary producers or placed on the market by those undertakings;

ii. where the aid is conditional on being partly or entirely transferred to primary producers;

 d) aid contingent upon the use of domestic over imported products;

 e) aid granted to firms in difficulty;

 f) aid to export-related activities to third countries or to other Member States, namely aid directly linked to the quantities exported, aid to the establishment and operation of a distribution network or to other current expenditure linked to the export activity.

Where an enterprise operates both in sectors excluded from funding under this scheme and in one or more sectors or fields of activity falling within the scope of this scheme, this de minimis scheme applies to aid granted in respect of the latter sectors or activities, provided that the aid beneficiary ensures, by appropriate means such as separation of activities or a distinction between costs, that the activities carried out in sectors excluded from the scope of the de minimis scheme do not benefit from de minimis aid granted under this scheme.

Granting of aid – how:

The aid is granted in the form of non-reimbursable financial assistance in one or more instalments. Grants that may be paid in several instalments are discounted to their value at the time they are awarded.

The interest rate to be applied for discounting shall be the discount rate applicable at the time the aid is granted.

Please note that de minimis aid is granted to projects financed on the basis of the application for funding, drawn up in accordance with the elements set out in the Guidelines for Applicants, but which will have no impact on the eligibility criteria in terms of state aid legislation, to which the following will be attached: 

• declaration on the classification of the applicant/partners as micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and, if applicable, calculation of the average annual number of employees, annual net turnover and total assets for partner or related enterprises;
• statement of the composition of the single enterprise to which the applicant/partners belong;
• declaration on the de minimis aid received in the last 3 years by the single enterprise to which the applicant/partner belongs.

 According to the current regulations, the beneficiaries of the de minimis aid scheme are SMEs (micro-enterprises, small enterprises, medium-sized enterprises) operating in Romania, in the economic sectors mentioned below, or consortia of such enterprises.

Thus, the enterprises referred to in Article 11 that cumulatively meet the following eligibility criteria may benefit from de minimis aid under the de minimis aid scheme:

 1. are registered according to the Law on Companies no.31/1990, republished, with subsequent amendments and additions;

2. they fall into one of the categories: micro, small or medium-sized enterprise at the date of submission of the application and at the date of signing the financing contract;

 3. it has no net budgetary obligations (the difference between the outstanding payment obligations to the budget and the amounts to be recovered from the budget):

a) greater than 1/12 of the obligations due in the last 12 months – in the case of the tax certificate issued by the National Tax Administration Agency;

b) more than 1/6 of the total amount due in the last six months – in the case of the tax certificate issued by the local public authorities;

 4. it is not in one of the situations incompatible with the granting of public funding;

 5. they have not received financial support from public funds, including EU funds, in the last 5 years, or they are not currently running projects financed, in part or in full, from other public sources, for the same activities, within projects similar to the one that is the subject of the application for funding; they have not obtained funding for other implemented projects, with the same objective, but which for various reasons have not achieved their indicators;

 6. they are directly responsible for the preparation, implementation and management of the project and do not act as intermediaries for the project proposed to be financed and are responsible for ensuring the sustainability of the project results;

 7. they do not fall into the category of “enterprise in difficulty;

 8. it is not in a state of insolvency, bankruptcy, judicial reorganisation, dissolution, liquidation or temporary suspension of activities or is not in a similar situation arising from a similar procedure provided for in national legislation or regulations;

 9. ensure from its own sources the amount of ineligible and related expenditure. The beneficiary’s own contribution, in a free form of de minimis aid/state aid, may come from its own sources, bank loans not guaranteed by the State, contributions from shareholders other than State authorities , or from other private sources;

 10. are not subject to a recovery order declaring State aid to be unlawful and incompatible with the common market or, if the applicant has been subject to such an order, it must have already been enforced and the aid fully recovered, including the related recovery interest;

 11. the legal representative has not been convicted by a judgment which has the force of res judicata for an offence concerning his professional conduct, for fraud, corruption, participation in a criminal organisation or any other illegal activity detrimental to the European Union’s financial interests;

 12. the legal representative has not been guilty of grave professional misconduct proven by any means which the contracting authority can justify;

 13. the legal representative is not subject to a conflict of interest;

 14. the legal representative is not guilty of seriously misleading OIPSI/AMPOC by providing incorrect information during participation in the call for proposals;

 15. provide evidence of membership of an TIC cluster, if applicable;

 16. provide proof of eligible co-financing of the project and associated ineligible expenses, excluding VAT (by submitting a bank/financial/banking institution issued bank statement or credit line/contract), at the contracting stage;

 17. are established up to and including 2019;

 18. they have made an operating profit for the last completed financial year;

 19. fulfil any other specific conditions/certainties, without prejudice to State aid provisions, resulting from the applicable legal provisions and the Applicant’s Guide.

In order to receive non-reimbursable funding under this de minimis aid scheme, the applicant shall provide a declaration on the de minimis aid received by the enterprise or single enterprise during the current fiscal year and the two previous fiscal years (either from state or local authority sources or from Community sources), as well as on state aid received for the same eligible costs.

The provider of this de minimis aid scheme will grant de minimis aid after verifying on the basis of the applicant’s own declaration that the total amount of de minimis aid granted to an enterprise or sole proprietorship over a period of 3 fiscal years, including the current fiscal year, either from state or local authority sources or from Community sources, cumulated with the provisions of this de minimis aid scheme, does not exceed the threshold of 200. 000 euro (100,000 euro in the case of enterprises operating in the road haulage sector on behalf of third parties or against payment), equivalent in lei, and that all the conditions of Regulation (EU) No 1.407/2013 are met.

Where the total amount of de minimis aid granted to an enterprise over a period of three consecutive years, cumulated with the amount of financial allocation granted in accordance with the provisions of this de minimis aid scheme, exceeds the threshold of EUR 200,000 (EUR 100,000 in the case of applicants operating in the transport sector), the applicant may not benefit from the provisions of this de minimis aid scheme even for that part of the aid which does not exceed this threshold.

It is important to underline that, under the de minimis aid scheme, information and publicity/promotion activities, consultancy services, opinions, agreements, authorizations, specific training/professional training, interim/final financial and technical audit of the project, internal project management, subscriptions and membership fees necessary for the implementation of the project can be financed.

The following categories of expenditure are considered eligible:

  1. information and publicity expenditure:

a) mandatory information and publicity costs for the project – as specified in the Applicant’s Guide and the Visual Identity Manual;

b) expenses for the promotion of the product/service developed by the project;

c) in the case of industrial research or experimental development projects – expenses for promoting the results of the project on a large scale (conferences, publications, open access registers or free or open source software);

2. expenditure on consultancy services, opinions, agreements, authorisations:

a) expenditure on consultancy services for the preparation of the documentation required for the submission of the project (application for funding, feasibility study, business plan, expert report, etc.);

b) expenditure on consultancy services in the field of project management, including the preparation of the documentation required for the implementation of the project and legal assistance services for public procurement (preparation of tender documents and application of public procurement procedures);

c) expenditure for obtaining agreements, opinions and authorisations related to the eligible activities of the action;

d) expenditure for obtaining, validating and protecting patents and other intangible assets;

3. expenditure on specific vocational training/education:

a) expenditure relating to the training of personnel for whom the software application/product/service developed/developed is intended/targeted;

b) expenditure related to the training of personnel who will maintain the software application/product/service developed/developed, if they are employees of the beneficiary;

4. expenses for intermediate/final audit of the project: financial audit (according to national regulations) and technical audit (in view of the correspondence of the project result with the funding application);

5. internal project management costs (only if not covered under project management costs):

a) salary costs for staff employed by the beneficiary of the grant;

b) travel expenses for the beneficiary’s staff (per diem, accommodation, transport);

c) transport of goods, if justified within the project;

d) office equipment – for the management team (according to Government Decision No 2.139/2004 approving the Catalogue on the classification and normal operating times of fixed assets, as amended);

e) purchase of TIC equipment – only for the management team.

Eligible expenses are settled after approval and start of implementation of the project and can be incurred until 31 December 2023.

The maximum eligible amount of de minimis aid that may be granted to a beneficiary under this de minimis aid scheme must comply with the following cumulative conditions:

1. it may not exceed 20% of the total amount of eligible expenditure relating to the project;
2. it may not exceed the equivalent in lei of 200.000 euro, calculated over 3 consecutive fiscal years (two previous fiscal years and the current fiscal year).

The de minimis aid is deemed to be granted on the date of signing the financing contract, regardless of the date on which the de minimis aid is paid to the enterprise concerned.

Legal basis:

MIPE Order 918/2022 for the approval of the de minimis aid scheme ”De minimis aid to support the development of innovative TIC products and services created by SMEs” under priority axis 2, investment priority 2b ”Development of TIC products and services, e-commerce and TIC  demand”, action 2.2.1 ”Supporting the increase of added value generated by the TIC  sector and innovation in the field through the development of clusters”, call 3, of the Competitiveness Operational Programme 2014-2020.