The New Investment Incentives Law: L. 4399/2016 “Statutory framework for the establishment of Private Investments Aid Schemes for the regional and economic development of the country Composition of an Incentive Board and other provisions” is published in the Official Gazette in June of 2016 (Official Gazette Α” 117 / 22.06.16).
Beneficiaries of the Investment Incentives Law 4399/2016:
- Personal Company
- Commercial Company
- Social Cooperative Company (SoCC)
- Agricultural Cooperatives (AC), Producer groups (PG) and Agricultural Corporate Partnerships (ACP)
- Companies in establishment or merger procedures
- Companies that operate as joint ventures, provided that they are registered in the General Electronic Commercial Registry (GEMI)
- Public and municipal companies, and their subsidiaries
Participation in the cost of the investment plan:
The participation itself can be also supported by external funding. The alternative means of capitals coverage are:
- Share capital increase
- Bank loan
- Exhaustion of current reserves
- Capitalization of reserves
Content of investment plan:
- Creation of new business unit
- Expansion of the capacity of an existing business unit
- Transformation of the business unit’s productive procedure
- Fundamental change in the overall production process of an existing business unit
- Purchase of all of the assets of a non-operating facility by the beneficiary
Strengthened investment categories:
Investment plans of all economy fields are included under the reservation of paragraphs of article 7 of the law.
State aid incentives:
- Tax exemption
- Cash grant
- Leasing Subsidy
- Subsidy for the cost of created employment
- Fixed corporate income tax rate
- Funding of business risk through mutual holding funds
Aid incentives percentages:
The aid incentives percentages, based on the new Regional Aid Map that range from 20 % – 55% depending on the Region of the investment implementation and the company’s size.
State Aids Schemes:
The New Incentive Law is distinguished in State Aids Schemes: a) General State Aids (Machinery and Equipment, General Entrepreneurship, New Independent SMEs), b) Investments of Innovative Character, Synergies and Networking, c) Financial intermediation and capital funds, d) Integrated spatial and sectoral plans and e) Major Investments.
The program LIFE is the funding instrument of the European Union for the environment. LIFE contributes to the sustainable development and the accomplishment of scopes and goals of the Europe 2020 strategy, supports the implementation of the 7th Action Program for the Environment and other strategies and schemes of the EU for the environment and climate. Through the LIFE program, measures and projects are funded with a European added value for the members-states.
At the LIFE program for the next funding period of 2014-2020, two sub-programs are established, the first concerns the Environment and the second the Climate Action. The budget for this period reaches the 3,4 billions €.
The part “Environment” of the new program (75% of the budget) covers three priority sectors:
- Environment and Resource efficacy
- Nature and biodiversity
- Environmental governance and information
The part “Climate Action” (25% of the budget) covers:
- Mitigation of climate change
- Adaptation to climate change
- Climate governance and information
The LIFE program besides the “traditional projects” such as pilot (innovative), demonstrative, best practices, information and awareness tasks and dissemination, also includes a new type of projects, the complete projects, strategies or tasks for the environment or climate, which will operate in extensive territorial scale and that will be funded in conjunction with at least one more funding source.
Moreover, it includes projects of technical aid, projects of capacity building and preparatory projects.
At least 55% of the resources, destined for action subsidies within the framework of environmental projects, will be funded in support measures for the conservation of nature and biodiversity.
The maximum funding sum for all projects during the first phase of the program (2014-2017) comes up to 60 % of the selected expenses and for the second period (2018-2020) up to 55%.
For the whole duration of the program (2014-2020) for the complete projects, the technical aid projects, the preparatory projects and the projects funded in the field of priority “Nature and Biodiversity” the funding comes up to 60 % of the selected expenses and up to 75 % of the selected expenses for projects that concern habitats or priority species.
The Erasmus+ program received its name by the fame of Erasmus within the framework of the European programs for Higher Education.
It is the new program of the European Committee for education, learning, youth and sports for the time period 2014-2020. It aims to the promotion of skills, employability as well as modernization of educational and learning systems of Life-Long Learning.
The programs of the European Territorial Cooperation (ETC) are a basic tool for the reinforcement of cross-border cooperations within the European framework, but also with third countries and are one of the main options for the programming period 2014-2020.
The European territorial cooperation in the level of members-states of the European Union is implemented through the cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation. These programs are distinguished in bilateral and multilateral.
The bilateral programs of cross-border cooperation aim to address the common challenges that cross-border areas face, to capitalize the development potentials and of course to strengthen the cooperation in aid of the harmonized route of the Union. The bilateral programs of foreign cooperation in Greece with bordering countries are:
- Cross-Border Program Greece – Bulgaria 2014-2020
- Cross-Border Program Greece – Italy 2014-2020
- Cross-Border Program Greece – Cyprus 2014-2020
- Cross-Border Program Greece – Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) 2014-2020
- The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia – Albania 2014-2020
The multilateral Programs of Territorial Cooperation, in which regions of our country participate, are:
- The Adriatic – Ionian (foreign)
- MED (foreign)
- MED ENI CBC (cross-border)
- Black Sea basin ENI CBC (cross-border)
- INERREG EUROPE (cross-regions)
- Balkan Mediterranean (cross-regions)
The program “Horizon 2020” is the financial instrument of the EU for the Research and Innovation that will cover the time period 2014-2020, with a budget of almost 80 billion dollars. The program supports the strategy “Europe 2020” that emphasizes the research and innovation as main gears for the smart, sustainable and complete development, by aiming at the same time to the efficient handling of significant social challenges.
The three basic axes of the program are:
- Εxcellent Science: scientific research of universal level that aims to the attraction of the best scientists to the EU.
- Ιndustrial Leadership: strategical investment in key technologies, such as nanotechnology-microelectronics, participation of the private sector, creation of innovative businesses.
- Societal Challenges: Handling of important social challenges, such as ageing of the population, exhaustion of energy resources, handling of climate change.
