The EU Commission issues new guidelines on national regional aid

"New guidelines on national regional aid for 2007 – 2013"*1. Introduction The compatibility of regional aid with the EC Treaty is governed by the Commission’s regional aid guidelines. The current regional aid guidelines were adopted in 1998 for an unlimited period of time. In April 2003, the Commission decided to apply these Guidelines until 2006, and to proceed to their review for the period after 2006, ‘in due course in order to give the Member States and the Commission time before the end of 2006 to draw up, notify and approve the regional aid maps for the period after 1 January 2007’.These new guidelines should apply for the whole of the next structural fund programming period, from 2007 to 2013. In order to prepare new guidelines, the Commission has undertaken an extensive