Brussels, 30/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has approved the creation of a joint-venture between the French firm Thales (formerly called Thomson-CSF) and the American firm Raytheon Co. The new firm will combine Thale's and Raytheon's respective activities in the field of air defence systems, comprising air operations command and control systems, battlefield systems and weapon location radars. For the requirements of its investigation, the Commission made a distinction between sales programmes (i.e., the design, development and production of new products) and the "catalogue" sales of the products in question ( (whereby customers buy existing products, usually developed through previous programmes). It did not find any problems of competition for wither of these markets, given the existence of other large and experienced competitors, and thus gave the operation its go-ahead.