Brussels, 05/04/2007 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has closed an in-depth investigation concluding that the €2.18 million aid that the Flemish Region intends to grant to support training at General Motors Belgium in Antwerp (“GM Antwerp”) is compatible with EC Treaty state aid rules. However, the Commission also found that a further €3.15 million in aid would only have served to finance training activities which General Motors would have carried out anyway, even without aid. Such aid would distort competition between plants located in different member states, explains the Commission, and is therefore incompatible with the single market.
The Belgian authorities notified the intention of the Flemish Region to grant a €5.33 million subsidy for a training programme costing €19.94 million to GM Antwerp, a Belgian subsidiary of the General Motors Corporation. The Commission supports workforce training activities but suspected that this aid was not strictly necessary and opened an investigation in April 2006 (see EUROPE 9181). The Commission's investigation found that training related to the launch of new models and to the press of bodywork parts, is part of the operating expenses that are anyway incurred by car manufacturers on the basis of market forces alone. Consequently €3.15 million of the planned aid could not be authorised.
The rest of the aid, worth €2.18 million, would support training activities of a more general nature. A first part of the training goes beyond the requirements necessary to produce the new model and extend the plant's press activities. The second part covers skills for which the Belgian authorities have shown that there is a significant shortage on the Flemish labour market. As a result, many workers having acquired these qualifications leave GM Antwerp every year. Therefore, the company is reluctant to continue to incur the significant costs for teaching these skills. The Commission concluded that the aid supporting these two parts of the training programme aims at inciting the firm to carry out more training activities, and is therefore compatible with the EU rules on training aid.