Joint Order No. 1515/191/2023 of the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development amending Order No. 933/79/2022 approving the State aid scheme associated with the RURAL INVEST Programme, the Programme Implementation Procedure and the Grant Guarantee and Payment Agreement was published in the Official Gazette (Part I) No. 439 of 19 May 2023.
According to the document, with regard to state aid in the form of a grant, the validity period of the scheme, i.e. the period during which guarantee contracts are issued, is from the date of authorisation by the European Commission (EC) of this scheme until 30 June 2022, and the period during which the grant payment can be made is from the date of authorisation by the EC of the scheme until 31 December 2024 inclusive.
State aid in the form of the grant, representing the cumulative amount of the risk commission, the management fee and the interest, shall be paid from the state budget, through the budget of the Ministry of Finance – General Actions, within the limit of the appropriations for the RURAL INVEST Programme approved for this purpose, under Title 55 “Other transfers”, Article 55.01 “Current internal transfers”, paragraph 55. 01.46 “Transfers to enterprises under state aid schemes”, and shall be paid monthly, up to and including 31 December 2024, to the FGCR account, on the basis of the centralised statements of interest due, submitted by the credit institutions on their own responsibility, and on the basis of the decisions to pay the amounts to be transferred to the FGCR account, issued and submitted by the scheme administrator.
In addition, the new law specifies that, under the state aid scheme associated with this program, the state aid will cover the payment of interest due by the beneficiaries of the Program for a period of 24 months from the date of granting the loan, not exceeding December 31, 2024 (inclusive), as well as the full amount of the management fee and the risk fee due for the entire duration of the guaranteed loan under the Programme, as well as a non-reimbursable component of up to 10% applied to the amount of the guaranteed financing, which will be granted from the state budget through the MF budget, within the limit of the appropriations approved in the budget for this purpose.
According to the recently published Joint Order, within a maximum of 5 working days from the transfer by the MF of the countervalue of the grant according to the provisions of the state aid scheme associated with the Programme, the FGCR, as administrator of the scheme, shall transfer to each financier the amounts corresponding to the interest component of the grant awarded by the scheme owner. The payment of the interest component shall be made up to and including 31 December 2024, within the budget allocated to the scheme under the Programme “Transfers to enterprises under state aid schemes”, in accordance with the legal commitment issued on the basis of a decision to pay the amounts to be transferred to the FGCR account, issued and transmitted monthly by the scheme administrator.
We underline that the modification of the payment term of the interest component applies accordingly to the concluded financing agreements and is not conditional on the conclusion of additional acts.
The provisions of this Order shall apply accordingly to financing agreements concluded up to the date of entry into force of this normative act, without being necessary to conclude additional acts for the modification of the payment term of the interest component.