96/257/EC: Commission Decision of 31 October 1995 concerning the aid granted by Spain to Seat SA, a member of the Volkswagen group (Only the Spanish text is authentic) (Text with EEA relevance)

• Articles: 3

Article 1

1. The aid for the Seat restructuring plan which is set out below is compatible with Article 92 (3) (c) of the EC Treaty and with Article 61 (3) (c) of the EEA Agreement:

- aid totalling Pta 38 billion granted by the Ministry of Industry and Energy to Seat, of which Pta 30 billion was granted illegally,

- aid totalling Pta 8 billion (including Pta 2 billion from the Community's Structural Funds) granted by the Generalitat de Catalunya to VW-Seat, of which Pta 6 billion was granted illegally,

provided that the following conditions and obligations are fulfilled:

(a) VW-Seat shall not alter the general contents of, or the timetable for, the Seat restructuring plan (PR 42, as amended by PR 43) and shall ensure in particular that:

- the paint shop at the free zone factory shall close and be dismantled by 31 December 1996, as notified to the Commission,

- the current level of capacity at the Seat plants shall not be increased before 1 January 1998,

- Seat's investment plan, which has been brought to the Commission's knowledge, shall be fully carried out;

(b) the aid shall be used exclusively for the restructuring of Seat SA;

(c) no additional aid, whether in the form of a capital contribution or of any form of discretionary aid, shall be granted to Seat SA or to its subsidiaries in Spain in support of the restructuring plan;

(d) the Volkswagen group shall not offset the reduction of capacity at the end of 1997 with contributions that have not been notified to the Commission; accordingly, the group's technical capacity shall remain limited to 11 813 units a day.

2. Spain shall send the Commission an annual report on the application of the amended restructuring plan (PR 43), the evolution of the costs, the receipt of the aid by the companies involved, the repayment of the two public loans obtained and the fulfilment of the conditions laid down. The report, together with the annual report of Seat SA, should be forwarded by the end of May following the report year.

Article 2

Spain shall inform the Commission, within one month of the notification of this Decision, of the measures taken to comply with it.

Article 3

This Decision is addressed to the Kingdom of Spain.

Done at Brussels, 31 October 1995.

For the Commission

Karel VAN MIERT

Member of the Commission

(1) OJ No C 237, 12. 9. 1995, pp. 2 and 12.

(2) Blanks between square brackets indicate business secrets deleted in the published version of this Decision.

(3) The figure of 1 500 units a day can also be found in a table sent by VW to the Commission in November 1993 showing the capacities of all the group's plants in the Community.

(4) Although the manufacturing capacity of the SO3 model, launched at Martorell in 1993, should in fact be 1 500 units a day, actual production at the end of that year was only 1 150 units a day.

(5) Excludes the production capacity of the Skoda subsidiary, which is not located in the EEA.

(6) The only difference between the table supplied by Volkswagen and that of the Commission concerns the capacity of Martorell, which the Commission fixed at 2 125 units a day instead of 2 100.

(7) OJ No C 123, 18. 5. 1989, p. 3.

(8) OJ No C 368, 23. 12. 1994, p. 12.