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Pociatek: EU Commission's Probe into Loan for Cargo a Common Step
Thursday 25 February 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, February 25 (TASR) - The European Commission's decision to launch an in-depth probe into a loan that Slovakia provided to the country's state-owned rail freight transport operator ZSSK Cargo Slovakia in 2009 is a standard measure, Finance Minister Jan Pociatek said following a Government session on Thursday.
The issue has been magnified, he said, as "the Commission is allowed to launch an investigation, and has done so numerous times. The latest investigation involved Ryanair. The investigation started out just like the Cargo investigation, and the result on that occasion was that no breach of EU's rules had been made," Pociatek explained. This will be the case with the loan for Cargo, too, he predicted.
The EU's executive branch announced on Wednesday that it has begun an in-depth investigation into whether a loan that Slovakia provided to the country's state-owned rail freight transport operator ZSSK Cargo Slovakia in 2009 is compatible with the EU's rules on state aid.
In March 2009, the Government decided on granting a €166-million loan to ZSSK Cargo to help the company cope with its financial problems.
The Commission has turned to Slovak authorities asking for an explanation vis-a-vis several questions concerning the loan. "Our company has no official indications concerning further measures pursuant to the EU's decision on this matter," said spokesperson for ZSSK Cargo Margareta Grecova.
Spokesman for the Transport Ministry Stanislav Jurikovic said on Wednesday that the ministry would never have been in favour of providing a loan that would be detrimental to competition in any way or could be viewed as unpermitted state aid.
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