5.12. 97 Official Journal of the European Communities L 334/25 COMMISSION COMMISSION DECISION of 9 April 1997 concerning aid granted by France to the textile, clothing, leather and footwear industries (Only the French text is authentic) (Text with EEA relevance) (97/811/EC) THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular the first subparagraph of Article 93 (2) thereof, Having regard to the Agreement on the European Economic Area, and in particular point (a) of Article 62 (1) thereof, Having, in accordance with the abovementioned Articles, given notice to the parties concerned to submit their comments, Whereas: 1 By letter dated 26 March 1996 from its Permanent Rep- resentation to the European Union, France notified the Commission of ‘experimental measures to reduce social security contributions for the textile, clothing and leather/footwear industries’. France decided that, in addition to the measures applying general relief on social security contributions taken in June 1995, the abovementioned industrial sectors should qualify for total exemption from employers’ social se- curity contributions for the guaranteed minimum wage (SMIC), the level of which is set by the State, and degres- sive relief on wages up to one and a half times the SMIC. By letter dated 31 May 1996 ('), the Commission informed France that it had decided to initiate Article 93 (2) proceedings in respect of the measures. At the time of the notification, the objective pursued by the reductions in social security contributions was job () OJ C 206, 17. 7. 1996, p. 8. creation and, in particular, the recruitment of young people in the four industries. This objective was also to be pursued through undertakings entered into by the two sides of industry regarding reductions in working time and the encouragement of part-time working. No details were given as to the content of these undertakings. For the four industries as a whole, the reductions in social security contributions are intended to encourage the recruitment of 7 000 unemployed young people and the safeguarding of 35000 jobs. The 7 000 jobs for young people represent net job crea- tion, while the 35 000 others are jobs which will not be shed in the two years following the entry into force of the arrangements. Without the new measures, the four indus- tries anticipate a loss of 60 000 jobs over the relevant two-year period. The effect is thus clearly a slowdown in the number of redundancies. The grounds on which it was decided to initiate proceed- ings are as follows: — since the reductions in social security contributions were not granted to all French firms, they amount to sectoral aid. The Commission consistently queries this type of aid, because of its impact on the economy and competition, particularly in industries in which there is substantial Community trade, — even in the case of aid for the creation of jobs, the Commission has to adopt a strict stance on sectoral aid in order to pre-empt any escalation of aid and, over and above that, to ensure that the very concept of