Brussels, 17/12/2013 (Agence Europe) - In an opinion on the European Commission's draft changes to the guidelines on monitoring state aid for restructuring and rescuing struggling companies, the Committee of the Regions (CoR) says it still opposes the Commission's plan to exempt steel companies from the guidelines because of the serious overcapacity on the steel market. It says that this is a short-term quantitative analysis, but the OECD forecasts global demand rising by more than a half by 2025. The CoR wants the percentage of finance that medium-sized companies requesting aid must provide for themselves to be reduced to below 50% and for sub-contractors' or staff contributions to be included in the calculation of the capital provided by the company. The CoR regrets that the Commission is suggesting a reduction in the cap on state aid for any one company at €5 million, compared with €10 million in 2007 and which it requested be increased to €15 million to cover the effect of inflation and the crisis. The opinion was published as part of the consultation exercise by Competition Commissioner Almunia running from 5 November to 31 December. The CoR recognises that the commissioner has taken account of a number of recommendations made by the CoR in a preliminary opinion in April 2013 (rejecting the idea of restricting the definition of struggling companies to those subject to formal insolvency proceedings; taking better account of measures like a ban on the payment of dividends; the duty to publish online information relating to the received aid; not taking into account (in the breakdown of charges) of public service payments compatible with the rules on services of general economic interest. (FG/transl.fl)