No L 182/94 Official Journal of the European Communities 2.7.92 COMMISSION DECISION of 20 December 1989 concerning aid granted by the French Government for the disposal of the assets of the MFL Group (Machines francaises lourdes), producer of heavy-duty machine tools ; (Only the French text is authentic) (92/328/EEC) THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, and in particular the first subpara- graph of Article 93 (2) thereof, Having given notice in accordance with the above Article to interested parties to submit their comments and having regard to those comments, Whereas : As a result of information published in the French press, by letter dated 22 February 1988 the French authorities were requested to notify the Commission of certain steps taken by the public authorities in favour of the companies of the MFL Group. Despite repeated reminders, the French authorities did not reply to the Commission’s requests. For that reason, and having well-founded doubts as to the compatibility with the Treaty of those alleged State measures, the Commission decided to initiate a formal investigation procedure pursuant to Article 93 (2) of the EEC Treaty. In this respect, the Commission took into account the strong competition prevailing among machine-tool producers within the Community, for which any aid measure granted to a specific producer involves a high risk of distortion of competition. The decision was communicated to the French Govern- ment by letter of 22 December 1988, giving it notice to submit its comments. The other Member States were informed by letters dated 12 May 1989. Finally, notice to other interested parties was given on 20 May 1989 by means of the publication of a notice in the Official Journal of the European Communilties. II The first details on the public measures were furnished by the French authorities by letter dated 14 March 1989. They were completed by letters dated 15 June and 20 July 1989, at the Commission’s request. According to them, in March and May 1988 the French authorities had decided to contribute to the recovery plan of the production facilities of MFL, whose assets had been sold to third producers under receivership proceedings initiated in November 1987. MFL was a holding company created in 1983 by the merger of several pre-existing machine-tool producers into two production subsidiaries, namely Forest Line and Berthiez Saint-Etienne. The group structure was completed by two trading companies in the USA, MFL Inc. and Goldsworthy. The formation of MFL responded to the objectives of the Machine-Tool  Programme, a  government-backed programme implemented in France between 1982 and 1985 with the purpose of reorganizing and supporting the restructuring of the national industry which was in serious difficulties. The underlying basic idea was to regroup several small machine-tool concerns which were in diffi- culty into large groups better placed to face foreign competition. Under the programme, the French Govern- ment invested about FF 2 600 million (ECU 366 million) in the form of profit-sharing loans (61 %) and subsidies and repayable advances (39 %), funding various activities, such as social restructuring and training (40 %), research and development and commercial measures (32 %), and modernization of production equipment (28 %). It should be noted that, as regards the aid involved in the Ma- chine-Tool Programme, in 1986 the Commission decided to close an investigation procedure without raising any objection to the programme’s execution in view of its contribution to the development within the Community of this industry of strategic importance. For the creation of MFL, the French Government inter- vened through Sopari (State-owned company for parti- cipation in companies and industrial restructuring) taking a majority shareholding (35,2 %). At the same time nine other French industrial groups were recruited as partners (Usinor, Sacilor, Renault, Alsthom, Peugeot, Schneider, Snecma, Dassault, Aéroespatiale). They were in general nationalized groups, and presented the common charac- teristic of being final users of the MFL product range. Thus, MFL was conceived as a specialized supplier of machine tools for strategic sectors. The MFL production break-down by purchasing sector was as follows : aeronau- tics (30 %), armaments (20 %), energy (10 %), automobile (6 %), mechanical and others (34 %).