Allied For Startups' Position on the Review of the General Block Exemption Regulation

Europe’s startups and scale-ups drive innovation, create high-quality jobs, and strengthen Europe’s global competitiveness. Yet current State aid rules often exclude these high-growth companies from support.

The General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER) sets the rules for when Member States can grant aid without prior approval – but its definitions are out of date, its financing tools too narrow, and its procedures too complex.

The upcoming revision of GBER is therefore a chance to create a modern framework reflect today’s innovation cycles and tomorrow’s growth. This would help unlock Europe’s competitiveness, accelerate breakthrough technologies, and help turn innovation into real, sustainable growth.

Our recommendations:

• Update the definition of a startup: extend eligibility beyond five years and remove penalties linked to accumulated early-stage losses.
• Adapt to long innovation cycles: ensure biotech, healthtech, clean energy and other deeptech firms can access support over 7–10 year horizons.
• Enable cross-border growth: design rules that facilitate scale-ups operating across the Single Market.
• Foster equity financing: align GBER with innovative tools like SAFEs, convertible notes, and employee ownership schemes.
• Simplify procedures: cut red tape so aid is accessible to fast-moving firms without disproportionate compliance burdens.

The Startup & Scale-up Strategy has set an ambitious agenda; the Competitiveness Compass has identified innovation and simplification as priorities. The GBER is one of the files where these priorities can be made real.

Modernising definitions, expanding the toolbox, recognising the global expansion stage, empowering intermediaries and simplifying procedures will transform GBER into a genuine catalyst for Europe’s competitiveness.

Europe cannot afford a GBER built for yesterday’s companies; it needs one designed for the innovators of tomorrow.