The European Commission has decided to include the Canary Islands in the group of regions with an average per capita GDP of 65% of that of the European Union, instead of 75%, which allows increasing the intensity of investment aid by 10% for companies on the islands from January 1, 2024, the regional government reported in a statement.
The Ministry of Finance has highlighted that the latest Communication from the European Commission on the mid-term review of regional aid for the period 2022 to 2027 takes as a reference for recalculating investment aid the GDP of the period 2019-2021, instead of the initially used 2017-2019, which means that the Canary Islands move from the group of regions with 75% of the average European GDP per capita to the 65% group.
That "automatically increases the intensity of aid", said the Canarian Vice President and Minister of Finance, Budgets and European Affairs in office, Román Rodríguez, in a statement.
For the Vice President, it is positive that the European authorities "have taken into account the aforementioned period to establish the calculation of GDP, especially important in the case of the Canary Islands, one of the territories most affected by the economic crisis derived from the Covid-19 pandemic".
Román Rodríguez admits that "it is never good news to lose income, but given the irreversibility of the decline caused by the paralysis of economic activity in the Archipelago, at least Canarian companies will be compensated and may see increased investment aid." No other modification is planned until 2027.
Now the Government of Spain must modify Royal Decree 622/2022, of July 26, which determines the Canary Islands Economic Promotion Zone, to raise the intensity of aid in the ten points approved by the European Commission to regional economic incentives for the archipelago, according to the Vice President.
