EFTA SURVEILLANCE AUTHORITY DECISION

No 235/09/COL

of 20 May 2009

on the Temporary Small Aid Scheme

(Norway)

THE EFTA SURVEILLANCE AUTHORITY (1)

HAVING REGARD to the Agreement on the European Economic Area (2), in particular to Articles 61 to 63 and Protocol 26 thereof,

HAVING REGARD to the Agreement between the EFTA States on the Establishment of a Surveillance Authority and a Court of Justice (3), in particular to Article 24 thereof,

HAVING REGARD to Article 1(3) of Part I and Article 4(3) of Part II of Protocol 3 to the Surveillance and Court Agreement (4),

HAVING REGARD to the Authority‘檚 Guidelines on the application and interpretation of Articles 61 and 62 of the EEA Agreement (5) and in particular Part VIII ‘�Temporary rules regarding the financial crisis ‘�Temporary Framework for State aid measures to support access to finance in the current financial and economic crisis (6), amended by the Authority‘檚 Decision No 190/09/COL of 22 April 2009 (7),

HAVING REGARD to the Authority‘檚 Decision No 195/04/COL of 14 July 2004 on the implementing provisions referred to under Article 27 of Part II of Protocol 3 of the Surveillance and Court Agreement (8),

Whereas:

I. FACTS

1. Procedure

The Norwegian authorities notified the Temporary Small Aid Scheme, pursuant to Article 1(3) of Part I of Protocol 3, by letter of 2 April 2009 (Event No 514308).

2. Description of the proposed measures

2.1. The objective of the aid measure

The Norwegian authorities have indicated that the financial crisis has started affecting the real economy. The notified measure is a part of a wider package of measures (9) aimed at remedying a serious disturbance in the Norwegian economy. The notified scheme provides for the possibility to grant small amounts of aid to companies finding themselves facing a sudden shortage, or even unavailability of credit, thus contributing to remedy a serious disturbance in the Norwegian economy.

The scheme is explicitly based on Article 61(3)(b) EEA, and relies on section 4.2 ‘楥ompatible limited amount of aid‘�of the Temporary Framework.

2.2. The nature and form of the aid

The aid will be provided in the form of transparent forms of aid, as defined by the General Block Exemption Regulation (10) Article 5, and in particular in the form of direct grants, reimbursable grants, interest rate subsidies and subsidised public loans with an aid element which is calculated on the basis of the Authority‘檚 reference rate (11) applicable on the date of granting the aid, and public guarantees.

The Guarantee scheme administered by Innovation Norway is normally employed in accordance with the Act referred to in Annex XV to the EEA Agreement on de minimis aid (12). This implies i.a. that individual aid provided to undertakings which are not undertakings in difficulty are treated as transparent de minimis aid when the guaranteed part of the underlying loan provided under the scheme does not exceed EUR 1 500 000 per undertaking (EUR 750 000 in the transport sector). To calculate the aid element of public guarantees for loans exceeding EUR 1 500 000, and in line with the possibility foreseen by the last sentence of the footnote to point 4.3.2(a) of the Temporary Framework, the Norwegian authorities will use as a benchmark the safe-harbour premiums laid down in the Annex of the Temporary Framework. Irrespective of whether the guarantees are issued for the benefit of SMEs or large companies, the annual aid element resulting from the guarantee will be calculated as the difference between the safe harbour premium rates laid down in the Annex of the amended Temporary Framework and the annual premiums applied by the Norwegian authorities.

2.3. National legal basis for the aid measure

The legal basis for the scheme is St.prp. nr. 1 (2008‘�009) for the Ministry of Trade and Industry, and a letter from the Ministry to Innovation Norway (‘�span class="italic">Oppdragsbrev Innovasjon Norge