The Government of Serbia has adopted a decree in the field of state aid control, which refers to the protection of the environment and energy, which regulates the conditions and criteria for state aid compliance.
This regulation refers to assistance to market participants in the energy sector, as well as to state aid for environmental protection to all market participants, regardless of the sector of the economy to which they belong, ie the activities they perform.
The decree, among other things, regulates the harmonization of state aid that will be granted for relocation of economic entities to new locations for environmental protection, for measures of adequacy of production to electricity producers, for the preparation of environmental studies, investment in energy infrastructure.
The conditions and criteria for state aid for investment in recycling and reuse of waste, energy efficient district heating and cooling, remediation of contaminated sites, collection and storage of carbon, investment in energy efficiency measures, reduction of environmental duties, collection and storage of carbon are also regulated, encouraging the production of energy from renewable energy sources.
The regulation states that state aid for environmental protection and in the energy sector is considered harmonized if it is granted to a market participant that is not in the process of recovering state or de minimis aid, as well as market participants who were not in difficulty (in terms of regulations on State Aid Control) on 31 December 2019.
Individual state aid is considered harmonized, inter alia, if it is determined to lead to a significant increase in the size of the project or scope of activities, the total amount that the beneficiary invests in the project or activity, the speed of project or activity, Nova Ekonomija reports.
