Article 1
Open ↗The 1992 guarantee amounting to ESP 1 620 million which was discharged by the payment in 1994 of ESP 983 million, and the 1996 guarantees totalling ESP 1 050 million which were provided by the Spanish authorities to the enterprise Grupo de Empresas Alvarez (GEA) constitute illegal aid for the purposes of Article 93(3) of the EC Treaty because they were not notified to the Commission prior to their award. They comply, however, with the Community guidelines on State aid for rescuing and restructuring firms in difficulty and are therefore compatible with the common market under Article 92(3)(c) of the Treaty and Article 61(3)(c) of the EEA Agreement, on condition that the Spanish authorities refrain, as they undertook in their letter of 22 May 1997, from granting any new aid to the company in the future and that they fully implement the agreed restructuring plan. The Spanish authorities shall submit to the Commission, until 31 December 2000, half yearly reports on the progress of the implementation of the restructuring plan as well as on GEA's economic data (business plans, profit and loss accounts) in order to enable it to verify if the estimates contained in the plan are being adhered to and if the Spanish authorities' undertaking to refrain from granting any further State aid to the firm is being observed. The reports shall be submitted to the Commission at half yearly intervals in March or October at the latest.