Brussels, 19/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - Amelia Torres, spokesperson for Commissioner Monti, indicated on Tuesday that the Commission would issue its decision on Wednesday over the merger between Usinor, Arbed and Aceralia, specifying that the renegotiation concerning a possible change of each partners' stakes would be without an impact on the assessment of the dossier. The notification of the merger remains in the hands of the European Commission, which will rule on Wednesday. I do not see why the possible renegotiation of the merger terms should have any impact whatsoever (…). This concerns a merger between three companies and, during an assessment from the point of view of competition, it is of little importance that a company has 90% or that three companies each share a third of the capital, indicated the spokesperson, in summary. In fact, according to the press the Spanish Aceralia and the Luxembourg based Arbed are trying to convince the French Usinor to review their share of the cake upwards. During the negotiations last February, the parties had agreed that the combined stake of Aceralia and Arbed would total 43.5%. However, the latter would like to see this stake rise to around 48% when taking into account the good performance recently enjoyed by Aceralia. The Commission will thus not get embroiled in the bickering and should issue on Wednesday a decision that the specialists present as positive. In fact, the three actors have accepted numerous concessions (see EUROPE of 9 November, p.10).