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Brussels starts an investigation on the purchase of the assets of the ship yard of Gdynia
the EU commission intends to ascertain if the support supplied from the Polish governmental agency for the industrial development constitutes an aid of State
January 25, 2012
The EU commission has started an investigation in order to ascertain if the public support guaranteed the purchasers of the assets of the ship yard of Gdynia, that it is placed in liquidation, constitutes an aid of State.
Brussels has remembered that in November the 2008 Commission had established that the aids of State granted to the yard Stocznia Gdynia S.A., the whose majority era of property of the ministry of the treasury, was in contrast with communitarian norms applicable to the aids Is been and that government of Warsaw would have had to recover such sums. As a result of this the Polish authorities had been engaged to sell the assets of the yard through opened procedures of contest, transparent, not discriminatory and therefore to put the yard of Gdynia in liquidation.
The new under way investigation now from the EU commission regards the support financial guaranteed from the governmental agency for the industrial development Agencja Rozwoju Przemyslu KNOWS (ARP) to the two Polish ship yards that they have acquired assets of the ship yard of Gdynia.
The yard of naval repairs Nauta KNOWS has in fact acquired three lotteries of the assets of the yard of Gdynia and in order to finance such operation ARP it has undersigned obligations emitted from the Nauta. The EU commission has explained that Nauta would have had to sign redeem the obligations from ARP with the proceeds deriving from the sale of the area on which the currently society work, while up to now such land is not yielded and Nauta is able to not to redeem the obligations. From part its ARP has accepted to postpone until the November the 2013 to Nauta term for the ransom of these obligations, to new conditions. The EU commission considers that Nauta has benefitted of two aids of State: the first drift from the support granted from ARP to Nauta for the emission of the bonds and the second is constituted by the delay of the term for reimbursement of such obligations.
The ARP has moreover granted a loan to the Polish ship yard CRIST KNOWS in order to finance the purchase of a dry dock of the yard of Gdynia.
"We are pleased - the vice president of the EU commission has declared, Joaquín Almunia, in charge of the competition - than the purchasers of the assets of the yard intend to continue the activity of shipbuilding to Gdynia. However we have put in clearly that they would not have to be granted new aids of State. We are starting formal investigations in order to determine if some purchasers have benefitted of the public support to more favorable conditions regarding the market. The Polish authorities and the others you leave interested will have the possibility to introduce observations and to verify all with the Commission".
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