NEWS & INSIGHTS

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February 2023 – On 21 February 2023, the Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic (“the Ministry”) published a call for the submission of applications for a subsidy to cover additional costs due to the increase in gas and electricity prices (“the Call”). The aim of the Call is to compensate qualifying companies and natural persons (entrepreneurs) for excessive energy prices from January to March 2023. In this article, we present an overview of the key information.

Basis

The Call was published in accordance with the state aid scheme approved by the European Commission under No. SA. 104846 under the State aid Temporary Crisis Framework (“the Scheme”).  The Ministry has allocated a total amount of EUR 279,820,623 for applicants under the Call. The total approved amount of the Scheme is EUR 600,000,000.

The Call is continuation of previous call under the Scheme published in 2022 which allowed the eligible enterprises to apply for compensation of energy prices in August and September 2022.

Form of aid

Aid will be in the form of a direct grant and only in respect of the gas or electricity off-taken during the period from 1 January 2023 to 31 March 2023 (“the Relevant Period”).

Aid will be provided in the amount of up to 80 per cent of the portion of costs exceeding:

• EUR 99 per MWh of gas; and
• EUR 199 per MWh of electricity

(“the Eligible Costs”).

Aid will not be provided in respect of the amount of gas or electricity consumed for the production of electricity or heat in case of a subsequent supply.

Calculation of the aid amount

• In respect of electricity

aid = Consumption in MWh * (average price paid for MWh in EUR - 199) * 0.8

• In respect of gas

aid = Consumption in MWh * (average price paid for MWh in EUR - 99) * 0.8

The average price for calculation purposes will be determined as the average price paid by the applicant during the Relevant Period.

Eligible enterprises

The aid is aimed at all qualifying enterprises regardless of their size, i.e., for micro, small and medium enterprises as well as large enterprises.

All types of businesses are eligible to apply for aid except:

• credit and financial institutions;
• enterprises that are (i) subject to EU sanctions, (ii) owned or controlled by sanctioned persons, or (iii) conducting business in sectors targeted by EU sanctions.

Enterprises in difficulties are also eligible for the aid.

Financial limits

The total amount of aid is limited to:

• EUR 600,000 per enterprise however,
• EUR 200,000 per each relevant month.

Application

Applications may be submitted only to the electronic mailbox of the Ministry via the form published on web portal of the Ministry - https://energodotacie.mhsr.sk/. If the applicant claims payment of aid in an amount exceeding EUR 100,000, the application must also contain identification of the ultimate beneficial owners.

The application must be submitted separately for each operational unit (in Slovak: prevádzka).

Accordingly, the application may be submitted only after the end of relevant month, where the Ministry will publish the date from which applications for each relevant month may be submitted on the above-mentioned website.

The deadline for submission of applications is 30 June 2023.

The Ministry will inform the applicant on the approval or refusal of aid within 30 days from submission of the application. If the application is not approved due to formal reasons, the applicant may re-submit the application.

Critical points

Register of Public Sector Partners

• Under Slovak legislation, if a person receives funds from the state budget in an amount exceeding EUR 100,000 in a single payment, it must be registered with the Register of Public Sector Partners (“the RPSP”).
• Registration with the RPSP may take several weeks, and thus we cannot rule out that many applicants will not manage to get registration before the deadline for submission of applications under the Call.
• It appears that the application form calculates the sum of aid automatically and applicants are not able to apply for a lower sum, e.g., below the EUR 100,000 limit for RPSP registration, and therefore applicants that are not able to register with the RPSP before the deadline would not be able to benefit from compensation at all.

Off-take points requirements

• Only applicants whose off-take points are assigned with an official code, i.e., (i) a 16-digit EIC code in respect of electricity, or (ii) a 20-digit POD code in respect of gas (“the Official Codes”) are eligible to apply for compensation.
• The Official Codes are assigned to off-take points directly connected to the distribution / transmission system or gas distribution network. However, in many cases, meters within retail / office buildings used by tenants to record their consumption do not have Official Codes assigned and thus are not eligible for the aid.

For more information, please contact the authors of the article.