28 - STATE AID - 2)

What happens in case applicants fill in the LP or PP declaration claiming the project activities are not State Aid relevant and the assessors will instead consider those activities as State Aid relevant in case the project will be recommended for funding? Will the applicants have the possibility to change the contents of the LP or PP declaration or to re-design the project activities avoiding the State Aid relevance? May this cause the rejection of the project proposal?

Project applicants shall bear in mind that sometimes State Aid relevance can be removed by adapting the activities of the project.

The JS shall verify State Aid compliance of the submitted applications through a dedicated assessment that will be performed following the Quality check.

This assessment will be based on the self-declarations provided by applicants (LP and PP) in the submitted application documents and more in depth on the basis of the information regarding the planned activities as described in the submitted Application Form.

According to the Factsheet n. 5 as far as the “state aid check” concern, the results of this assessment, shall identify one of the following solutions to ensure the compliance of the approved project with State aid rules:

Project modifications aimed at minimise/reduce or eliminate the State aid cause (e.g. wide dissemination, also to competitors, of a project output) to be addressed to the affected partners ensuring a future sound and balanced project implementation;
Project modifications addressing specific project activities and aimed at removing indirect aid granted to project final beneficiaries (e.g. some SMEs attending for free to a training course organised within the project).
Results of State Aid check shall be approved by the Monitoring Committee and may lead to conditions for approval of those projects that are relevant to State Aid.