Brussels, 22/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 22 March, the European Commission presented its new public State Aid Register, an instrument for use when seeking information on State aid. This is the first of two instruments to be set up by the Commission to enhance transparency. The second is a State Aid Scoreboard that will provide an analysis of the situation in this field, in Member States. The register contains detailed information on decisions taken by the Commission and on matters still under review. It will be regularly updated in order to allow the public to have access to the most recent information. Its aim is to complete not only information already available in the Commission's annual reports on State aid, but also to encourage Member States to put pressure on each other by keeping them informed on current issues in neighbouring States, in the aim of stricter compliance with existing rules and regulations.
In concrete terms, the new instrument is in two parts. The first presents information approved on all affairs that are the subject of a preliminary examination registered after 1 January 2000. The second allows users to carry out simple research on all decisions adopted by the Commission in matters relating to State aid registered after 1 January 2000. The descriptive entries summarise each affair and provide links towards a large amount of other information available on the policy, decisions and legislation relating to State aid. The next versions provide for the inclusion of the 1999 and 2001 decisions. The document may be consulted on the host page of the DG Competition website at: http: //europa.eu.int/comm/competition/index_en.html.