Delayed Corona aid for thousands of companies

After the agreement with the EU Commission, 2,700 companies should still receive their aid money. Around 4,000 applicants have already received their money, and the remaining payments are scheduled to start in mid-December. Applications can be made via the Business service portal be reset.

The background: During the Corona pandemic, the Ministry of Finance paid out around 15 billion euros in Corona aid money to companies via the Covid financing agency COFAG.

Deadlines violated EU law

Because the Application deadlines for this violated EU state aid law and initial applications after June 30, 2022 were not in accordance with EU law, affected companies were even threatened with repayments. Payouts have now been stopped.

Following the agreement between Austria and the EU Commission, the national directive has now been issued as the legal basis for new applications and payments.

“With the new directive, those companies that are waiting for aid to be paid out due to late applications will receive aid that is in line with the requirements of the European Commission,” said Finance Minister Magnus Brunner (ÖVP), according to the announcement.

Thousands of open applications can now be processed

Overall, with the late application policy 6,754 applications can now be processed. The total volume to be processed amounts to a maximum of 183 million euros that have been applied for. In addition, almost 3,000 additional applications still need to be processed, but these are still dependent on a solution in connection with corporate caps.

According to COFAG, some of this aid money has already been paid out. According to the Ministry of Finance, it is still difficult to estimate how much money is involved in total because, on the one hand, there is still no agreement with the Vice Chancellor’s Office about the restructuring and it is not clear what amount will result from the new calculation.