Brussels, 01/06/2006 (Agence Europe) - The Commission has authorised the Veolia Transport and the Butler Capital Partners (BCP) investment fund management company to jointly acquire the SNCM (Société Nationale maritime Corse Méditerranée), hitherto controlled by the French State. The latter is active in passenger and freight transport from continental France (ports of Marseilles, Nice and Toulon) to Corsica, Algeria and Tunisia, as well as to Sardinia. The transport subsidiary of the group Veolia mainly operates passenger transport services for public authorities and manages road and rail networks and, secondarily, maritime transport services. The Commission has not noted any competition problems on the passenger or fret transport markets in so far as BCP is in any case not present on these markets and as Veolia Transport does not have transport activities in the same geographic area as SNCM.