Brussels, 31/08/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission denies preparing to reject a Czech plan to restructure the steel industry, contrary to the story run by The Financial Times in its Thursday's edition. "We do not have a plan; we do not reject any plan; we await a plan, with details", said Commissioner Verheugen's spokesman. The Czech government had just adopted a plan, that the Commission has probably not yet received, Czech sources explain. The Czech Republic, which has three steel companies, two of which are state controlled, must carry out in-depth reform on an industry that is ageing and costly. Under the European agreements, it must obtain approval from the European Commission before launching into such a restructuring plan accompanied by State aid. The problem seems to be that the plan adopted by the Czech government would be quite different from a plan proposed by a study carried out by a group of consultants and financed by the Community programme PHARE, published in May. According to close observers, the Czech plan is "quite different because the plan proposed by the consultants was too costly according to the government, but better communication between the two parties would probably make it possible to reach a compromise". The differences would mainly cover the way the two public enterprises are put up for sale as well as the rate of dismissals and the reduction in production.