No L 7/28 Official Journal of the European Communities 9. 1. 85 COMMISSION DECISION of 23 July 1984 on the North Rhine-Westphalia regional economic development programme (Only the German text is authentic) (85/12/EEC) THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, and in particular the first subparagraph of Article 93 (2) thereof, Having given notice to the parties concerned to submit their comments in accordance with the above provision, and having regard to those comments, Whereas : By note verbale of 22 July 1982 the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany notified the Commission, in accordance with Article 93 (3) of the Treaty, of amendments to its guidelines for the award of investment aid to improve the regional economic structure of the Land North Rhine-Westphalia (regional economic development programme). The main amendments to the previous guidelines, dating from 1978 and 1980, are changes to the regional-assisted areas in North Rhine-Westphalia. These changes were carried out at the same time as a review of assisted areas under the joint Federal Government/Liander regional-aid programme (the ‘Joint Task for the improvement of regional economic structures’) and employed partly the same methodo- logy as the joint review. Thus, the Land used the labour market region map which was drawn for the 1979 joint programme review on the basis of local commuting patterns and which identifies 179 such regions countrywide, whose boun- daries are drawn to local government boundary level. In the joint programme review, to determine which of the 179 regions should be assisted, the situation of each region was assessed according to five criteria: a measure of future supply and demand for labour, the average rate of unemployment over the period 1976 to 1980, average wages and salaries per employee in 1978, gross domestic product per head of resident popula- tion in 1978, and finally a measure of infrastructure provision. The figures for each variable were: combined into a composite indicator, in which the employment and income indicators each received weights of 40 % and the infrastructure indicator 20 %. The 179 regions were then ranked in ascending order of composite indicator values. Those with values under 459 (73 regions in all) were designated assisted areas for the purposes of the joint programme. ’ For its review, North Rhine-Westphalia used the same composite indicators but set the cut-off point dif- ferently, allowing any region to qualify which had a composite indicator value of at least seven percentage points below the national average. This meant that regions up to position 87 in the national ranking table could qualify for inclusion in the Land scheme, and Aachen (position 82) and Borken-Bocholt (position 87) in fact did so. Six previously assisted labour market regions and three further localities were removed from the Land programme by the method. In addition to the labour market regions qualifying according to the above method, the Land also desig- nated as assisted areas until the end of 1985 the regions Gelsenkirchen, Hagen, Siegen and the Lenge- rich area of the labour market region Osnabriick on the ground that they were suffering under the effects of structural change caused by the crisis in the steel industry. Lengerich was also included because the central = part of the region, Osnabriick- Georgsmarienhiitte, was assisted under the joint programme steel areas aid scheme (approved by the Commission) and it was thought that assistance only to the central part would disadvantage the peripheral part of the region around Lengerich. Of the six designated areas, Aachen and Hagen had not been assisted areas before under the Land scheme. In Borken-Bocholt, Osnabriick-Lengerich and Siegen the aid ceiling was raised by 2,5 percentage points, while in Gelsenkirchen the scheme continued unchanged. These six regions hold approximately 3,1 % of the population of the country as a whole and 10,5 % of that of the Land. The areas of North Rhine- Westphalia assisted under the joint Federal Govern- ment/Linder programme (including the steel areas scheme), which are not subject to this procedure, hold a further 8,8 % of the national and 29,7 % of the Land population.