Brussels, 16/03/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Commissioner for competition, Mario Monti, qualified accusations in the British press as "pure rubbish", accusations in part blaming the delays in the ongoing investigations within the Commission into State aid to the Rover plant of Longbridge for BMW's decision to pull out of Rover. Speaking on the BBC on Thursday, he declared: "Let's put things into perspective, this is a 'drop in the ocean'. The grant we are assessing, and a conclusion will be reached before July, is about 10% of the total cost of the project at Longbridge and it is absolutely minimal relative to the unfortunately huge losses of Rover (some 1.1 billion euro in 1999)".
The Commission had initiated an investigation in December last on regional aid of 227 million euro to Longbridge and had approved aid of 17.7 million earmarked for the staff of the Rover factory (see EUROPE of 23 December 1999). It suspected that the aid had not been a defining factor in avoiding the relocation of the plant. Commissioner Monti recalled on the BBC that the United Kingdom had backed the Commission when Germany had taken it before the Court of Justice for having refused aid to Volkswagen.
Mr. Monti's spokesperson, moreover, said that the examination into the aid was being undertaken with all possible speed, but that the procedures (which involve the ability of Rover rivals to have a say) had to be respected.