According to the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, the first payments of the "Corona Emergency Aid" began just two days after the program was announced. However, the majority of applicants still have to be patient.
With the "Corona Emergency Aid," companies in immediate need receive immediate assistance from the Bavarian government. The amount of support is staggered according to the number of employees: up to five employees receive a maximum of €5,000, up to ten employees a maximum of €7,500, up to 50 employees a maximum of €15,000, and up to 250 employees a maximum of €30,000. The Ministry of Economic Affairs announced last Friday that payments had already been received by the first companies. However, the money will not reach freelancers and companies on a large scale until later this week. Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger (FW) explains:
"We urged banks and savings banks to speed up the processes. This made rapid disbursement possible. We now have tens of thousands of applications with a total financial volume of several hundred million euros."
Applications are processed by the respective district governments, and Munich companies contact the RAW (Lower Saxony Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Energy). With the "Corona Emergency Aid," the Ministry of Economic Affairs aims to secure the liquidity of freelancers or companies that lack reserves. This is intended to prevent otherwise healthy companies from sliding into insolvency due to the coronavirus crisis. Aiwanger says:
"You have to certify in your application that you no longer have any liquid assets. Therefore, anyone who owns money, gold, or stocks is not eligible. This won't be checked immediately. However, if this turns out to be the case later, the emergency aid would have to be repaid."
Measures in addition to the “Corona emergency aid”
The emergency aid is granted once and can only provide short-term relief. For longer-term financial challenges, Bavaria and the federal government have announced additional measures, some of which have already been implemented. These include, among others, easier granting of corporate loans by LfA Förderbank Bayern and KfW. Details on these and other measures can be found in this article.
