Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2662 actions· ✨ 89 recent

The European Commission approved on 8 April 2024 a €267 million Slovak State aid measure (SA.103740) under Article 107(3)(a) TFEU and the 2022 Regional Aid Guidelines to support Volvo Cars Slovakia s.r.o.'s construction of a new battery-electric-vehicle manufacturing plant in the Valaliky Strategic Industrial Park near Košice in eastern Slovakia. The facility is designed for up to 250,000 BEVs per year against a total private investment of approximately €1.2 billion, creating around 3,300 direct jobs in one of Slovakia's least-developed NUTS-2 regions. The aid takes the form of a direct cash grant and marks the single largest project-level EU state-aid notification by Slovakia in over a decade, anchoring the country's pivot from ICE-vehicle sub-assembly toward full BEV manufacturing.

Slovakia's Národná rada adopted Act No. 31/2024 Z.z. on 13 February 2024, amending Act No. 57/2018 Z.z. on Regional Investment Aid by inserting two new sections — §28a (Mimoriadna investičná pomoc / Exceptional Investment Aid) and §28b (Exceptional Investment Aid in sectors strategic for the transition to a climate-neutral economy) — creating the national legal base for disbursing the EC-approved €1 billion Slovak TCTF net-zero state-aid envelope (EC decision 15 December 2023, SA case approved under the Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework). The scheme supports manufacturers of batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, heat pumps, electrolysers, CCUS equipment, key components thereof, and related critical raw materials, with aid ceilings of €350 million per project in general districts and €150 million in Bratislava region, at aid intensities of 15–60% depending on company size and geography. Act 31/2024 is the horizontal enabling statute underpinning all large-scale Slovak net-zero state-aid awards flowing from the TCTF/NZIA envelopes — including future battery gigafactory, electrolyser, and clean-tech plant grants in the 2024–2025 window.

Act No. 497/2022 Coll. on the Screening of Foreign Investments and on amendments to certain acts, adopted by the National Council of the Slovak Republic on 29 November 2022 and promulgated in the Zbierka zákonov on 23 December 2022, established Slovakia's first horizontal ex-ante foreign-direct-investment screening regime. The Act took effect on 1 March 2023, transposing EU Regulation 2019/452 into Slovak law and replacing the prior sector-specific approach under Act No. 45 on critical infrastructure. Screening is administered by the Ministry of the Economy of the Slovak Republic across three procedures (mandatory, voluntary, and ex officio) and covers transactions in defence, dual-use, critical infrastructure, critical raw materials, biotechnology, AI, semiconductors and other emerging technologies. The Ministry can prohibit, condition or unwind non-compliant transactions and impose administrative penalties.