Investment aids: The European Commission adopts new guidelines on risk finance investments aid

*This article is an automatic translation of the original article, provided here for your convenience. Read the original article. As part of its strategy to modernise state aid, the Commission adopted on 21 January 2014 new guidelines on state aid to promote risk financing investments, which will enter into force only on 1 July 2014 and replace the current Risk Capital Guidelines adopted in 2006 and amended in 2010. The guidelines do not fundamentally change the principles underlying the current guidelines, but aim to make the rules less restrictive both as regards eligible SMEs and as regards possible forms of financing, aid instruments and financing structures. In particular, they take into account the results of the public consultation launched in 2012 and the fact that the financial