by Dr. Tamás Balázs, Partner, Attorney at law
In accordance with the petition for aids of the funds of the European Union an ordinance Nr. 272/2014 has been issued by the Hungarian government for the period between 2014 and 2020 which regulates the procedure of the payment of the aids of the European Union. We would like to highlight the most important characteristics of this procedure in our article.
The companies are entitled to submit a petition for the aids in relation to the following funds of the European Union: European Regional Development Fund, European Social Fund, Cohesion Fund, European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, European Maritime and Fisheries Fund, European Network Financial Fund, Youth Employment Affairs, Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived.
The applicant has to submit its petition to the competent Control Authority in order to apply for the aid of the fund of European Union. The Hungarian State as the member of the European Union was obliged to create a control authority in relation to every programme of the European Union. The petition for aid must be prepared with the electronic application given in the tender. If it is not excluded in the tender, a consortium may submit an application. The consortium is cooperation between the members in order to realize the project and to support their common economic interests. The division of the obligations between the members of the consortium is regulated in the civil contract between the parties. In relation to our experience in many cases, all of the members of the consortium must complete the requirements of the tender. A member of the consortium must be indicated in order to represent the consortium in front of the procedure of the Control Authority.
In accordance with the experience of our Legal Partnership, after the submission of the petition for the aid of EU funds, each petition for the aid of EU funds is controlled whether the application meets the entitlement requirements of the tender. If the entitlement requirements are fulfilled, the applicant is informed by the Control Authority within 10 days after the receipt of the petition for aid. In the following step of the procedure the Control Authority starts to examine the content of the petition. If the petition is incomplete or incorrect and the entitlement requirements are not fulfilled, the applicant is demanded by the Control Authority within 10 days after the receipt of the petition to resubmit the petition with the correction of the defaults. The Control Authority is obliged to set a deadline of at least seven days for the resubmission of the petition. If the resubmitted petition does not meet the requirements of the Control Authority or it is not submitted on time, the petition will be rejected by the Control Authority.
The Control Authority makes a decision about the petition after examining its content. If the claimed amount of money of the aid for the EU fund exceeds one billion Hungarian Forints (approximately 3.300.000,- EUR), the National Development Government Committee makes a decision about the application on basis of the proposal of the member of the Control Authority.
The applicant is informed by the Control Authority about its decision. The Control Authority makes its decision about the petition within 30 days after the arrival of the petition (in case of periodical judgement the Authority makes its decision within 30 days from the close of the period or from the deadline of the submission of petition).
The applicant is entitled to advance payment. The advance payment can only be paid to the applicant if it is requested by the applicant. The advance can be transferred to the applicant if the transfer of the aid is granted in the tender or in the aid contract, the applicant has an aid contract and the application for the advance payment meets all of the requirements. The aid can be transferred to the applicant with the approved claim for payment by the authority. All of the costs of the company must be certified with invoices. The Control Authority takes care of the transfer of the amount of aid or the advance payment.
