Press Release: State aid: Commission partially endorses training aid to General Motors Belgium

The European Commission has closed an in-depth investigation concluding that €2.18 million aid the Flemish Region intends to grant to support training at General Motors Belgium in Antwerp (“GM Antwerp”) is compatible with EC Treaty state aid rules. However, the Commission also found that further €3.15 million aid would only have served to finance training activities which General Motors would have carried out anyway, even without aid. Such aid would not serve the common interest by increasing training activities, but would simply distort competition between plants located in different Member States. Therefore, the Commission decided that this last part of the aid would be incompatible with the Single Market.