InvestEU Sustainability loan

• You must be a micro, small or medium-sized enterprise under Bulgaria’s SMEs Act, or a Small Mid-cap. The SME size test uses staff numbers and either turnover or balance-sheet total: the overall SME ceiling is fewer than 250 staff and annual turnover of no more than €50 million, or a balance-sheet total of no more than €43 million. Data from linked or partner businesses may also count. Under the InvestEU definition, a Small Mid-cap has fewer than 500 full-time equivalent employees and is not an SME.
• For solar or wind project financing, the loan must meet the renewable-energy investment criteria. Provide either an investment description that includes the additional energy-generation capacity to be installed, measured in megawatts (MW), or a report generated by the EIF InvestEU Sustainability Guarantee Tool confirming the investment’s eligibility. You must also evidence the expenditure, for example with invoices, purchase contracts or technical quotations, and accept loan-contract commitments on how the funds will be used. The purpose and commitments must be in the signed agreement; technical documentation and proof of expenditure must be available before the bank disburses the funds.
• If your business belongs to a group of linked or partner enterprises, another company in that group may meet the green-investment criterion instead. That company must receive the full benefit of the loan financing. For a business acquisition, this can be the business or part of a business joining the group.
• InvestEU requires the borrower to be established and operating in an eligible country: an EU member state, an overseas country or territory linked to an EU member state, or another country participating in the programme.
• If your project requires an environmental impact assessment under national law, you must have obtained the required assessment, permits and authorizations. You must also comply in all material respects with applicable national environmental, climate and social rules.
• The bank assesses the loan under its normal lending procedures and the EIF criteria applicable to its guarantee agreement. The guarantee framework requires a scheduled repayment period of at least 12 months.
• You cannot use an EU programme grant to repay this loan, or use this loan to pre-finance an EU programme grant. Refinancing existing debt may account for no more than 10% of the loan’s initial principal.
• Small Mid-caps must declare before signing whether they already have InvestEU-supported debt from any financial institution and its outstanding principal. The bank includes that debt when checking the programme’s total borrowing limit.
• Borrowers in bankruptcy, insolvency, winding-up, court administration, suspended-business or comparable creditor-arrangement proceedings are excluded. A final tax or social-security non-payment decision in the past five years excludes you while the debt remains unpaid, unless you have a binding payment arrangement. Your business is also excluded if it, or a person who represents, makes decisions for or controls it, has a final finding of grave professional misconduct in the past five years. This covers wrongful intent or gross negligence affecting the agreement: materially misleading or fraudulent information, agreements that distort competition, undue influence over an award decision, or attempts to obtain confidential award information for an unfair advantage. Final convictions in the past five years involving fraud, corruption, criminal organisations, money laundering or terrorist financing, terrorist offences or assistance with them, child labour or human trafficking also exclude your business if they concern it or those representatives and controllers. An active exclusion decision in the EU’s Early Detection and Exclusion System also bars access. The bank checks these exclusions and the EIF policy on excluded and restricted activities when assessing the borrower.
• You must allow authorized EU and EIF auditors access to relevant documents and premises, as required in the loan agreement. Keep or be able to produce the loan-related documentation for five years after the loan ends.

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Warunki naboru

• Apply through ProCredit Bank’s published financing contact route.[^c7][^c8]

Contact ProCredit Bank on *7000 in Bulgaria or +359 700 170 70 from abroad. Ask for InvestEU Sustainability financing and describe your solar or wind investment. The current product page invites new applications, and the bank carries out the lending assessment.