State aid to steel R&D subject to new rules following expiry of ECSC treaty
The European Commission has proposed an amendment to the rules for state aid to steel research and development (R&D), recommending that the aid be exposed to the same horizontal rules as other sectors of the economy following the expiry of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) treaty on 23 July 2002. Under the ECSC treaty, which was signed by France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg in 1952, regional investment aid as well as rescue and restructuring aid to the steel sector was prohibited except for in a limited number of cases, one of them being research and development (R&D). Under the Commission's proposal, this exemption will continue under new rules, with the steel industry being subject to the same horizontal rules as other sectors. A spokesperson for the Commission told CORDIS News that this change will not however affect coal and steel research. 'The Commission proposes to transfer the assets of the ECSC (1.6 billion euro) into the EU Treaty, with the Commission being in charge of those assets, especially the estimated 45 million euro per year earmarked for coal and steel research. These research projects function in principle like other research projects, meaning that they do not [...] give a competitive advantage to one company and that they represent co-financing. Also, those projects would be pre-competitive like our other projects. This means that they are not considered to be state aid anyway,' said the spokesperson. A lack of provisions for steel research in the Sixth Framework programme (FP6) will also have no affect on research in this field as it will continue to be covered separately, as has been the case under the ECSC Treaty, said the spokesperson. 'No Framework programme has taken care of steel research, since that was always covered by the ECSC Treaty. That will continue to be the case even after the expiry of this treaty since the assets are still there and will be used for research but completely independently from FP6,' she said. Supporting the prohibition of state aid, EU Competition Commissioner said: 'For a long period of time, steel companies in Europe have functioned without the recourse to some types of state aids available to the rest of the industrial sectors and they have integrated this factor in their strategies. The strict regime applied so far has been instrumental in ensuring fair competition in this industry'.