State Aid case SA.56685 | State aid notification on compensation scheme cancellation of events related to COVID-19

Summary:

Assessment conducted by the European Commission on a Danish aid scheme to compensate organisers for the damages suffered due to the cancellation of large events with more than 1,000 participants due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Further information:

Denmark notified the European Commission on 11 March 2020 of its intention to set up a €12 million aid scheme to compensate organisers of events with more than 1,000 participants or targeted at designated risk groups irrespective of the number of participants, which had to be cancelled or postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

On 12 March, the Commission found the aid scheme to be in line with EU State Aid rules. The assessment was conducted under Article 107(2)(b) TFEU, which enables the Commission to approve State Aid measures granted by Member States to compensate specific companies or specific sectors for the damages directly caused by exceptional occurrences. The Commission decided to consider the COVID-19 outbreak as an exceptional occurrence.

This was the first State Aid measure notified by a Member States to the Commission in relation to the virus outbreak.

Official

European Commission: Press Release, 12/03/2020: State aid: Commission approves €12 million Danish scheme to compensate damages caused by cancellations of large public events due to COVID-19 outbreak https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_454

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