Brussels, 22/07/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 17 July, the European Commission authorised €47 million of aid, which the German authorities intend to grant to Wacker Schott for the production of solar wafers in Thüringen, Germany. The project involves investments of €322 million and is expected to significantly increase direct and indirect employment. The Commission deemed the measure compatible with the requirements of the Regional Aid Guidelines 2007-2013 and, in particular, with the rules on large investment projects. At the same time, the Commission opened a formal investigation into €48 million aid for a third plant to manufacture solar wafers by Deutsche Solar in Saxony, Germany. Deutsche Solar already has two plants: Freiberg South and FreibergSaxonia. In this case, the Commission is concerned that the aid is not fully in line with Regional Aid Guidelines 2007-2013 and its conditions for granting aid for large regional investment projects. These guidelines include a progressive reduction of the regional aid ceiling for very large projects, because these suffer less from typical regional handicaps than smaller projects. If the measure for the construction of the FreibergEast plant forms a single investment project with the extension of the FreibergSouth plant, the scaling down would apply to the combined investment and, therefore, the notified amount of aid for the FreibergEast plant would need to be reduced. Deutsche Solar and the German authorities maintain that they should be considered as separate investments. The Commission, therefore, needs to investigate the potential technical, functional, strategic and geographic links between the two investment projects of FreibergEast and FreibergSouth, which started almost simultaneously. (O.J./transl.rt)