The EU commission rejects the plan of SeaFrance restructure



The EU commission has rejected the plan of restructure of the company of SeaFrance navigation, branch of the railway group public French SNCF, than work a service ferry on the Calais-Must route. The Commission has explained that, in spite of the intense which lasted negotiations a year with the French authorities and the delay granted until on 19 October with the objective finding a solution, has been necessary to draw the conclusion that SeaFrance has not contributed to sufficiency to finance its plan of restructure and that, therefore, the aid to the company notified last February from France to the EU is not compatible with the communitarian norms on the aids of State.

Initially the restructure plan included the recapitalization of SeaFrance for 223 million euros by associate only SNCF, that it has its time is fully-owned of the French State. The Commission has found that within this plan the contribution of SeaFrance to the restructure costs was inferior to 5% and not pairs instead to 50% as expected from the norms EU. Successively, after the opening of a procedure in communitarian center, the French authorities had reduced the contribution to the recapitalization by SNCF to 166,3 million euros and had communicated that SNCF would have distributed a loan of 99,7 million euros in order to complete the financing of the restructure plan.

However, according to Brussels, financial the French authorities have not been able to demonstrate that the contribution of the company, than from on June 30, 2010 is in controlled administration, is free from aids of State and that rather reflects the confidence of the markets on its future profit. It is a picture - it has observed the Commission - that it returns the contribution of an external investor necessary in order to support the restructure plan, to limit the aids lessened and to demonstrate the confidence of the markets in a return to the profit, investor who up to now the French authorities have not been able to find. The Commission has remembered that, in fact, the communitarian norms allow to above all approve of aids to the rescue and the restructure if the addressee of the aids is contributing with resources own with the objective "to demonstrate that to the markets (owners, creditors) believes in the possibility of the return to the profit within a period of reasonable time".

"My staff and I - Joaquín Almunia has explained, vice president of the EU commission and in charge of the competition - have worked without pause in order to find a solution fair I am in terms of occupation competition that. But the data introduced from the French authorities, unfortunately, cannot contribute to remove the doubts on the real contribution of SeaFrance to the restructure plan".

The minister of the Transports French, Thierry Mariani, has declared that "the decision of the Commission, whose consequences on the social plan are heavy, is difficult to understand". From part its Almunia has emphasized that "the Commission will be naturally careful to the social consequences of this decision and will on hand make available to France the instruments in this field".

The pronunciamento of the commercial court of Paris on the bankrupt procedure and therefore on the future of SeaFrance is attended while in these hours, that it could be mail in liquidation.

We remember that this summer the groups DFDS and Louis Dreyfus Armateurs (LDA) have advanced an offer in order to acquire some assets of SeaFrance ( on 26 July 2011). Between the hypotheses advanced from the French union Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (CFDT) in order to ask for the liquidation of the society, besides the sale to DFDS-LDA, figure also the cession of the company to a Scop, a society participatory cooperative and constituted by the dependent of the company.