Support for small and very small businesses affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in Attica

Support for small and very small businesses affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in Attica - The program

Businesses in the Attica Region are facing a lack of liquidity and are suffering significant losses due to the impact of the measures to limit the outbreak of the COVID-19 disease. The exceptional nature of the COVID-19 outbreak means that the losses in question could not have been foreseen, are of a significant scale and therefore create conditions for businesses that are significantly different from the market conditions in which they normally operate. Even healthy businesses, which are well prepared for the inherent risks of doing business as usual, face difficulties that threaten their viability.

The primary objective of this action is to provide targeted, public support in order to ensure that there will be sufficient liquidity in the market to deal with the effects of the COVID-19 disease.

In this context, the specific action "Strengthening of small and very small businesses affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in Attica" concerns the support of small and very small businesses affected by the pandemic in the form of a non-refundable grant, as defined below.

Beneficiaries

Beneficiaries of the aid, i.e. businesses that may be eligible for public funding in the context of this action, are the Small and Very Small Businesses, which legally operate in the Attica Region. The basic conditions for the participation of businesses that submit a proposal are the following:

• To be active in the Attica Region
• Be started before 1/1/2019
• Have as their main activity code or the activity with the largest income one of the eligible SSCs of Annex I and in which they have been active continuously at least from 31/1/2020 and until the day of submission of the proposal
• Be a Very Small or Small Business
• During 2019 they employed fewer than 50 workers
• The sum of the expenses resulting from the following categories must be equal to or greater than €10,000:
• of Consumer Goods Markets
• of the Purchases of Raw Materials and Consumables
• of the total Expenses for the Provision of Services
• of all the Rents paid for use by the business
• of all Benefits to employees (except those employed in Agricultural and Biological activities)
• of the total of Miscellaneous Operating Expenses
• To keep simple or double-written books of Law 4308/2014
• Operate exclusively with one of the following corporate/commercial business forms:
• SA,
• Limited Liability Companies,
• General Partnership,
• Limited partnership,
• I.K.E,
• Sole Proprietorship,
• N.E.P.A.,
• Social Cooperative Enterprise of Law 4430/2016 as applicable,
• Partnership
• Law Firm of article 49 et seq. of Law 4194/2013
• Civil Society of Court Administrators
• Notarial Companies of PD 284/1993
• Civil Law Society
• Maritime Companies
• Municipal Non-Profit Companies (AMKE), Associations/Unions and Foundations, as long as the following conditions apply cumulatively: (a) they also have a business activity and (b) they are subject to tax
• Co-ownership

Ineligible beneficiaries
Financial institutions, offshore companies, Legal Entities under Public Law, public enterprises, public bodies or public organizations and/or their subsidiaries, as well as enterprises assimilated to them, are not eligible to apply for funding.

Please note that only applications from businesses that:
a) They have submitted the income tax return for the year 2019 on time in accordance with the tax legislation and
b) They will fill in the amounts of the aforementioned fields with the data of the income tax return (tax form E3 of the year 2019, as extracted from the systems platform) submitted on time in accordance with the tax legislation.

In the event that an E3 amending return has been submitted after the income tax return deadline, both must be submitted to verify that the amounts of the above-mentioned fields of the last timely return have been used.

It is clarified that, in cases where a business operates both inside and outside the Attica Region, the beneficiary must submit a Responsible Declaration of N1599/86, deemed to be a genuine signature, in which it will declare the expenses incurred for the operation of the facility /branch in the Attica Region in order to calculate the amount of working capital on this amount. In any case, this ratio cannot be greater than the corresponding ratio of the number of employees employed within the Attica Region in relation to the entire business cumulatively within and outside the Attica Region, which will be confirmed during the evaluation.

Program budget

The total Public Expenditure of the actions of this invitation amounts to 200,000,000.00 euros.

In addition to the 200,000,000.00 euros, an additional 50,000,000.00 euros will be allocated exclusively to very small businesses employing up to nine (9) staff (based on the 2019 EME), as long as they meet the call criteria and according to their ranking.

The Action is financed by resources of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) within the Operational Program "ATTIKI" 2014-2020 of the NSRF 2014-2020 and will be co-financed with resources of Greece and the European Union.

Amount of subsidy

Public funding covers Working Capital equal to 50% of the company's expenses in 2019 with a minimum grant amount of €5,000.00 and a maximum of €40,000.00.

The amounts on which the exact grant amount will be calculated result from the sum:

• of Consumer Goods Markets
• of the Purchases of Raw Materials and Consumables
• of the total Expenses for the Provision of Services
• of all the Rents paid for use by the business
• of all Benefits to employees (except those employed in Agricultural-Biological activities)
• of Miscellaneous Operating Expenses

Subsidized expenses

The paid-in working capital must have been used up within 2021. This will be proven by the E3 form of the year 2021 in which they must have been declared in the respective fields, on the basis of which the calculation of the paid-in working capital was made (see ch. 4 ), sums which cumulatively will NOT fall short of the paid working capital. In the event that during the audit that will be carried out in 2022 and after the tax declarations of the companies have been submitted, it is established that the opposite is true, the difference between the amount paid and the sum of the declared amounts will be sought as an unduly paid amount

Important dates

Start of Submissions: 23/10/2020 at 13.00

Deadline for submissions: 20/01/2021 at 15.00

All the integration decisions, which also constitute the decision to grant the aid, will have been issued by 30/06/2021.

The final control request is submitted at the option of the beneficiaries until 30/09/2021.

Necessary supporting documents for submission

17/12/2020
Submission documents – Support for small and very small businesses affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in Attica

Pre-scoring

You can send us by mail to info@espa.io the following supporting documents in order to pre-qualify your business for free in order to submit an application to the Action

Useful files

6/10/2020
Invitation of the Action "Strengthening small and very small businesses affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in Attica"

9/10/2020
1st Amendment to the Call for Action

6/11/2020
2nd Amendment to the Call for Action

16/11/2020
3rd Amendment to the Call for Action

07/12/2020
4th Amendment to the Call for Action

17/12/2020
5th Amendment to the Call for Action

17/12/2020
Eligible NACE code – Support for small and very small businesses affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in Attica

17/12/2020
Submission documents – Support for small and very small businesses affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in Attica