Brussels, 22/07/2005 (Agence Europe) - On the 20 July, the European Commission authorised French aid of 197 million EUR for the restructuring of the Imprimerie Nationale (national print- IN), on the basis of the rules of the EC Treaty on State aid. The restructuring plan presented by the French authorities will allow the viability of the company to be re-established in the long term, and the aid will bring about no undue competition distortion. It is thus fully in line with the guidelines for rescue and restructuring aid to struggling businesses of 1999.
The IN is a public company active in the printing sector. It is present mainly on four markets: fiduciary (partially covered by a legal monopoly on State fiduciary documents), continuous printing, rotary printing, sheet printing. The IN found itself in difficulties due to a falloff in activity in the sector since 2001. Furthermore, its loss of the contract for printing the France Telecom directory contributed to undermining its treasury. In February 2004, the Commission authorised rescue aid to IN, on the condition that the French authorities would present a restructuring plan within six months.
The restructuring aid of 197 million EUR, approved by the Commission, is accompanied by a restructuring plan which should allow the IN's activities to be re-centred around its historical functions, i.e. the printing of secure documents (under the fiduciary documents and continuous printing markets). This will entail completely abandoning a substantial part of its activities (notably rotary printing, sheet printing, correspondence sales and technical publishing) and the reorganisation and renationalisation of the remaining resources. A social plan will allow staff cuts of two thirds. The IN should be viable once more in 2008.
On top of the abandonment of activities and reducing of its staff levels, the French authorities have proposed significant compensation in order to limit the possible unfavourable consequences of the aid on the competition. Specific resources will thus be implemented to avoid the possibility that the legal monopoly of the IN could allow it to take over markets which are open to competition in an abusive way. To this end, an exhaustive list of the products covered by the monopoly will be drawn up and, in order to avoid any risk of subsidies crossing over, the monopoly will become legally separated from its activities which are open to competition by no later than 1 July 2007. Before this separation is implemented, an independent expert will examine the IN's accounts and the modalities of the fee allocation and will ensure that no subsidies have crossed over.