Chr. Staikouras: The government supports households and businesses

The government is demonstrating in practice that it has shown vigilance and determination in dealing with the challenges it faces pandemic of coronavirus, stressed the Finance Minister Christos Staikouras, positioned in Plenary Session of the Parliament on the draft law entitled “General Censuses for the year 2021 by the Hellenic Statistical Authority, urgent regulations to deal with the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic COVID-19, urgent budgetary and tax arrangements and other provisions”.

The government continues to act methodically and responsibly and with timely and targeted interventions, extends and enriches the support and protection measures for households and businesses, he said.

The Minister of Finance also made some improvements to the bill: Article 27, which supports landlords from non-receipt of rent, to «explicitly include church legal entities under public law as well as legal entities under private law of a non-profit nature». On the provision of Article 28 which suspends the time limits for maturity, appearance and payment of securities, he said that the time periods are further extended and that the regulation shall be retroactive until the publication of this Bill.

Also, in Article 34 on the transfer of farmers from the special to the normal VAT regime, he said it is corrected so that farmers not to pay fines for late submission of declarations of changes, while extending the deadline for submitting declarations of changes until 31/3/2021 for the year 2021.

Mr.Staikouras made a special reference to the adoption of the temporary measure of state aid to businesses in the form of cost subsidies, in order to further support and protect businesses affected by the effects of the health crisis and the preventive restrictive measures for the spread of the coronavirus in the economies of European Member States.

He said that the government had been actively involved in the process of formulating the European Union's Temporary Framework on State Aid, stressing that the changes that were eventually adopted enhance the flexibility provided by the Temporary Framework, increase the State aid thresholds and extend the time horizons of such aid.

In particular, the main changes are:

- Extending the implementation of the Temporary Framework until the end of 2021, from June 2021 as set out in a recent amendment.

- Forecast for the possibility of converting repayable measures into other forms of aid under certain conditions, such as grants.

- Doubling of the aid limits, on the basis of which the aid is also granted Refundable Deposit, as they increase from EUR 800 000 per undertaking to EUR 1,6 million, from EUR 100 000 per undertaking active in the primary production of agricultural products to EUR 225 000, and from EUR 120 000 per undertaking active in the fisheries and aquaculture sector to EUR 270 000. As Mr Staikouras said, «if we add the possibility given to a company to use the threshold of 200,000 euros through de minimis, then the maximum total amount per company can be up to 2 million euros».

- Increase in the aid ceiling, on the basis of which it is provided that the State may contribute to the coverage of part of the fixed costs of undertakings not covered by their revenue, from EUR 3 million, which was fixed by a recent amendment at EUR 10 million.

The Finance Minister said that with the proposed provision, the government intends to make use of the above provision of the Temporary Framework to further extend the safety net already in place with the measures taken so far.

In particular, an aid scheme is being introduced for firms affected financially by the emergence and spread of coronavirus, through State support for their uncovered fixed costs. The beneficiaries of the aid will be, in particular, undertakings which:
- belong to the the sectors directly affected of the Greek economy,
- show a reduction in turnover of at least 30% in 2020 compared to the previous year, as recorded in European texts to date,
- record a significant loss in the previous year.

At the same time, taking advantage of the flexibility provided by other aid schemes, «the possibility of more targeted combinations of the above parameters is being examined, so that the perimeter of the aid also includes cases of enterprises with particularities in terms of the problem in their turnover or results of use». The measure will be implemented through the electronic platform mybusinesssupport of AADE, the minister said

Mr.Staikouras announced that within February the relevant institutional framework is planned to be completed in cooperation with the European Commission, so that companies will then be invited to register the relevant data and the necessary information for the calculation of the amount of fixed costs, as determined by the Ministry of Finance. «At the ceiling of aid, -as it will be determined in the next period- the other aid received by the companies, although they will be included in the final amount of aid, not cumulative,» the minister pointed out and added: «This gives the possibility for businesses that had “reached” the limits set by the Temporary Framework to receive aid, in the context of the pandemic, beyond these limits.». He stressed that «this aid will be targeted in terms of utilisation, and will be sought to be non-refundable».

Finally, Mr.Staikouras referred to his proposal to the Speaker of the Parliament to discuss the issue of the prospects of the banking system in the relevant parliamentary committee, with particular emphasis on the management of non-performing loans, and with the participation, as he explained, of Hellenic Banking Union and managers.