Brussels, 27/05/2003 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday, the European Commission extended the formal investigation concerning the potential grant of further restructuring aid to public Spanish shipyards. The Commission intends to clarify whether a sum of € 515 million was granted to the public yards that today are owned by the IZAR group. The potential aid apparently took the form of capital injections and loans, namely: loans amounting to € 194.4 million to the three public shipbuilding companies Cadiz, Juliana and Manises; a capital injection to AESA of € 252.4 million, which AESA appears to have transferred to its shipbuilding companies Puerto Real, Sestao and Sevilla; capital injections of € 68.2 million to the public shipyard companies Astano, Cadiz, Juliana and Manises. At this stage, it appears that this money has been provided by the State holding company Sociedad Estatal de Participationes Industriales (SEPI) in 1999 and 2000. The Commission has doubts whether this might not constitute further state aid which, after the approval of a restructuring package of € 811 million in 1997, would not be compatible with EU shipbuilding aid rules.
In another decision the Commission opened the formal investigation concerning capital injections of around 1500 million euro provided from SEPI to IZAR during the years 2000 to 2002. These capital injections amount to € 1322 million in 2000, 105 million in 2001 and 102 million (provisionally) in 2002. The objective of the state aid procedure in this case is to clarify if any of the capital provided to IZAR has benefited the civil shipyards or civil production of ships. Spain has claimed that these large capital injections concern only military shipbuilding. The Commission has doubts whether the capital provided by SEPI to IZAR does not confer economic benefits to civil shipbuilding which it is unlikely to have received from commercial sources. Capital provided to IZAR via SEPI or any other public source therefore may constitute incompatible State aid.