WRITTEN QUESTION E-2760/98

by Ben Fayot (PSE) to the Commission

(10 September 1998)

Subject: Establishment of a commercial centre in the European Development Pole (EDP)

There are plans to establish an out-of-town shopping centre with an area of more than 18 000 m2 (13 000 m2 for a hypermarket and 5 000 m2 for a shopping arcade) in the French part of the European Development Pole. This large-scale shopping centre, targeting cross-border customers, will exert enormous pressure on existing trade in France, Belgium and Luxembourg in the area surrounding the European Development Pole.

Can the Commission say whether it is permissible for the EDP, which was created from industrial waste land with the financial aid and support of the EU, to serve as a shopping centre or whether, pursuant to the Convention signed in 1995 by the partners to the EDP, it should not rather be used to create jobs in industry or in the industrial services sector?

Should not there at least be agreement among the three partners (France, Belgium and Luxembourg) on what is and is not acceptable to each of them in a case like this where cross-border competition is to be given free rein?

Finally, does not the action on which the French side is embarking ultimately risk destroying of the spirit of cooperation on which the EDP is based?

Does the Commission intend to intervene with France to ensure that the objectives of the European Development Pole, and the aims which the EU assigned to this project, are complied with?

Answer given by Mrs Wulf-Mathies on behalf of the Commission

(28 October 1998)

The aim of the European Development Pole (EDP), as envisaged by the French, Belgian and Luxembourg governments in the joint declaration of 1985, was above all to rehabilitate, by means of common measures, the cross-border industrial basin of Longwy-Rodange-Athus, an area severely affected by the decline of the iron and steel industry.

The efforts, with which the Commission has been associated since 1986, involved the reconstitution of a diversified industrial base, in a position to replace the iron and steel industry and to ensure new economic development of the basin.

First of all through the national programmes of Community interest, then the Lorraine and Luxembourg Objective 2 programmes, the Community part-financed an aid scheme for productive investments, in order to stimulate investment by industrial companies or service providers on the central site of the EDP.

The establishment of a major distribution centre does not fit the profile of investments which can qualify for Community part-financing. However, no provision excludes the establishment of commercial activities in the international business park. The implementation of the programme, and in particular the choice of projects, are the responsibility of the Member States.

In a spirit of cooperation and in order to reach a consensus, the three partner Member States of the EDP began coordination within the Cross-Border Association of the European Development Pole Conurbation. This Association, created in 1996 and benefiting from European Regional Development Fund part-financing under the Interreg II programme, is intended to provide a forum for discussion between all the public and private players concerned with a view to laying down a common spatial planning policy for the local authorities.

The Commission hopes that the European spirit of cooperation which is at the basis of the EDP will continue, that the international business park will abide by its initial purpose of providing a reception area for industrial companies and that the three partners will arrive at a concerted solution.