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1. The Commission may, by means of regulations adopted in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 8 of this Regulation and in accordance with Article 107 TFEU, declare that the following categories of aid are compatible with the internal market and are not subject to the notification requirements of Article 108(3) TFEU:

(a) aid in favour of:

(i) small and medium-sized enterprises;

(ii) research, development and innovation;

(iii) environmental protection;

(iv) employment and training;

(v) culture and heritage conservation;

(vi) making good the damage caused by natural disasters;

(vii) making good the damage caused by certain adverse weather conditions in fisheries; (viii) forestry;

(ix) promotion of food sector products not listed in Annex I of the TFEU;

(x) conservation of marine and freshwater biological resources;

(xi) sports;

(xii) residents of remote regions, for transport, when this aid has a social character and is granted without discrimination related to the identity of the carrier; (xiii) basic broadband infrastructure, small individual infrastructure measures covering next-generation access networks, broadband-related civil engineering works and passive broadband infrastructure, in areas where there is either no such infrastructure or where no such infrastructure is likely to be developed in the near future;

(xiv) infrastructure in support of the objectives listed in points (i) to (xiii) as well as in point (b) of this paragraph and in support of other objectives of common interest, in particular the Europe 2020 objectives;

(xv) financing channelled through or supported by EU centrally-managed financial instruments or budgetary guarantees, where the aid consists in the form of additional funding provided through State resources;

(xvi) projects supported by EU European Territorial Cooperation programmes;

(b) aid that complies with the map approved by the Commission for each Member State for the grant of regional aid.

2. The regulations referred to in paragraph 1 shall specify for each category of aid:

(a) the purpose of the aid;

(b) the categories of beneficiaries;

(c) thresholds expressed in terms of aid intensities in relation to a set of eligible costs or in terms of maximum aid amounts or, for certain types of aid where it may be difficult to identify the aid intensity or amount of aid precisely, in particular financial engineering instruments or risk capital investments or those of a similar nature, in terms of the maximum level of state support in or related to that measure, without prejudice to the qualification of the measures concerned in the light of Article 107(1) TFEU;

(d) the conditions governing the cumulation of aid;

(e) the conditions of monitoring as specified in Article 3.

3. In addition, the regulations referred to in paragraph 1 may, in particular:

(a) set thresholds or other conditions for the notification of awards of individual aid;

(b) exclude certain sectors from their scope;

(c) attach further conditions for the compatibility of aid exempted under such regulations.