Brussels, 27/07/2000 (Agence Europe) - The spokesperson for the European Commissioner for Competition Mario Monti indicated, on Thursday, that six Member States have notified the Commission of their systems of "State guarantees." This notification was required by the Commission in its Communication to Member States through which it explained its doctrine in this field, by indicating in which cases these guarantees are to be considered as State aid and as a result subordinate to usual practices involving the obligatory notification and the authorisation by the Commission for each system. The Member States had been invited to notify before 5 June the systems in question.
The six Member states that answered are: Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Ireland, Portugal and Luxembourg However, Germany did not notify the guarantee systems used by the Lander that benefit the Landesbanken (Lander banks) and the Spaarkassen (building societies). EUROPE recalls that a dispute exists between the Commission and the German authorities over this issue (see our issue of 29 July, p.11 and the following article).
The Commission's services are currently examining the notification received, with special attention to the German case. At the same time, they have sent reminders to nine Member states that have not yet proceeded with notifying the systems of State guarantees.