The European Commission has today found that investment support granted by Czechia to certain large agricultural companies in 2017 and 2018 was not in line with EU State aid rules.
In January 2021, the Commission had opened an in-depth investigation to assess the aid provided by Czechia to specific large agricultural entities for irrigation projects and orchard restructuring.
Although the schemes were initially exempted under the Agricultural Block Exemption Regulation, the investigation found that some large agricultural companies that benefited from the scheme were wrongly classified as small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). As a result, the aid granted to these large companies did not comply with the conditions laid down for compatibility under the block exempted schemes. Furthermore, the aid granted to large companies did not comply with the specific conditions for such companies set out in the 2014 Agricultural Guidelines.
Under EU State aid rules, Czechia is now obliged to recover the incompatible aid to rectify the distortion of competition created by the unlawful support.
For further information: see Commission’s Press Release