Brussels, 09/05/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission this week adopted its 13th Monitoring Report on Steel Aid Cases (under Article 95 of the ECSC Treaty) which covers the period from 1 July 1999 to 31 December 1999.
The report, which will be discussed during the next Industry Council on 18 May, shows that only four companies are still subject to permanent monitoring, namely:
- Irish Steel (Ireland). Control covers respect of production and sales limits until 30 June 2000 as well as the freeze of production capacity until the end of May 2001. So far these conditions have been complied with.
- Siderurgia Nacional (Portugal). Monitoring mainly concerns the replacement of the blast furnace by an electric arc furnace and a reduction of workforce to 1410 workers. These conditions are related to each other since the additional workforce, needed to operate the old blast furnace, can only be laid off when the new furnace is in place and operational. The new furnace should be operational by the third quarter of 2001. The Commission is willing to extend, where necessary, the monitoring period.
- EKO Stahl (Germany). The Commission supervises the capacity limitation of the new hot rolling mill to 900,000 t/y to be respected until end January 2000, then 1.5 million t/y from February 2000 until end January 2005. The output of the hot-rolling mill can only be used for further processing in the company itself. So far, these conditions have been fulfilled.
- Voest Alpine Erzberg (Austria). The annual maximum amounts of both operating and closure aid until end 2002 have been authorised in order to be able to close mining operations of the company by 2002. Also, the price charged for iron ore shall be in line with market prices. The report notes, however, that the production ceiling has been exceeded. The Commission is currently examining the situation and calls on Austrian authorities to provide it with information on this subject. The latter have replied that the production excess was due to unforeseen circumstances and that the quantity will be deduced from the 2000 quota. The Commission expressed satisfaction with this compromise.
