EC Industry Council (Hansard, 28 June 1994)

§ Mr. Sainsbury

The Council had a general debate on the report of the Bangemann group on Europe and the Global Information Society which has been presented to the Corfu European Council. There was welcome emphasis on the role of the private sector, liberalisation and market forces in developing the information society.

Preliminary conclusions were adopted by the Council on the Commission's integrated programme in favour of small and medium-sized enterprises and the craft sector. This brings together existing measures and new proposals in favour of SME's within an overall framework. The Council agreed to complete its detailed examination of the programme by the end of the year.

The Council heard a report from the Commission on the progress of the OECD negotiations on shipbuilding subsidies and emphasised the importance of concluding these in July as long as the few outstanding issues could be resolved satisfactorily.

On steel, the Commission gave a progress report on the implementation of the article 95 state aid decisions approved in December 1993. In response to a request from the United Kingdom the Commission agreed to a minute statement that it would not hesitate to take action where breach of the article 95 decisions was established. The Commission also reported on progress being made with the restructuring plan for the Community's steel industry and informed the Council that, using its own powers under the steel aids code, it intended to permit Italy to give aid to assist capacity reductions among its private sector producers. The majority of the Council supported the Commission's approach. The United Kingdom was among those expressing reservations about the Commission's interpretation of the aids code, but we were able to obtain 466W agreement to tighter conditions being attached to any aid granted. Member states will be consulted on resulting aid applications from Italy on a case-by-case basis.