On December 29, 2019, at the suggestion of the Ministry of Economy, the Government of Serbia adopted the Decree on Incentives for Investors for the Production of Audiovisual Works in Serbia, with the prior approval of the State Aid Control Commission.
The first change of this Regulation comes in January 2020, when the Government extends the deadlines and adopts the change, without the prior approval of the Commission. In April 2020, the Commission approves this amendment.
At the session of the Government, on April 30, 2020, a new amendment to the Decree was passed again, which additionally extended the deadline until August 31, 2020, instead of April 30, as it was before.
After consideration, the Commission approved this amendment to the Regulation in May, considering that the Proposal to amend the Regulation did not need to be notified as state aid, given that only certain deadlines were changed and thus the type, instrument or amount of state aid was not changed in any way.
Then, on May 21, 2020, the Ministry of Economy submitted to the Commission a new proposal to amend the Decree, which the Government certainly adopted on June 26, 2020, this time without the consent of the Commission.
Then, on August 27, 2020, the Government of Serbia makes another amendment to this Decree, this time changing the part of the Decree where the formats of the audiovisual part for which the right to grant incentives can be realized and define the minimum amounts of funds that the investor is obliged to provide and adds that he can exercise the right for an animated series, if funds are provided for the realization of the project in the amount of at least 150,000 euros per episode.
Also, the definition of the format for which it is possible to exercise the right to the allocation of incentive funds has been changed, and with that change, the right to get a feature film, TV film, feature documentary with a duration of at least 70 minutes.
In addition, an animated film intended for screening lasting at least five minutes, as well as animated series of at least ten episodes lasting a total of at least 50 minutes, have the right to funds.
At its session on November 2, 2020, the Commission decided that all previous changes were regular, saying that the essential elements of the Decree had not been changed and that the changes did not affect the admissibility of the state aid in question, and that all previous changes were in line with state aid cumulation rules, Nova Ekonomija reports.
