No L 220/12 Official Journal of the European Communities 25. 8. 94 COMMISSION DECISION of 1 June 1994 authorizing the grant by the United Kingdom of aid to the coal industry for the last quarter of the 1993/94 financial year and for the 1994/95 financial year (Only the English text is authentic) (94/574/ECSC) THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community, Having regard to Commission Decision No 3632/93/ ECSC of 28 December 1993 establishing Community rules for State aid to the coal industry ('), and in particular Atticles 2 (1) and 9 thereof, Whereas : By letter of 30 March 1994, the United Kingdom sent the Commission a modernization, rationalization and restruc- turing plan for the coal industry in accordance with Article 8 (1) of Decision No 3632/93/ECSC. In the same letter, the United Kingdom notified the Commission, in accordance with Article 9 (1) of Decision No 3632/93/ECSC, of the financial support which it intends to grant to the coal industry during the last quarter of the 1993/94 financial year and the 1994/95 financial year. In accordance with Decision No 3632/93/ECSC, the Commission is required to: — give its opinion on whether the modernization, ration- alization and restructuring plan is in conformity with the general and specific objectives of Decision No 3632/93/ECSC; — take a decision on the carrying-over to the last quarter of the 1993/94 financial year of a sum totalling £2 187 759,71 and to the 1994/95 financial year of a sum totalling £116354 577,43 of a provision authorized by the Commission until 31 December 1993 and intended to cover operating losses of under- ground coal-mining undertakings. The financial support which the United Kingdom proposes to grant to the coal industry falls within the () OJ No L 329, 30. 12. 1993, p. 12. scope of Article 1 (1) of the Decision. The Commission is therefore required to decide, in accordance with Article 9 (4) of the Decision, whether the support is in conformity with the objectives and criteria of the Decision and is compatible with the proper functioning of the common market. II The modernization, rationalization and restructuring plan notified by the United Kingdom needs to be examined in the light of the general objectives laid down in Article 2 (1) and the specific criteria and objectives laid down in Articles 3 and 4 of Decision No 3632/93/ECSC. This plan is based on the White Paper on the prospects for coal published by the United Kingdom on 2§ March 1993. . Its main objective is to make the United Kingdom coal industry fully competitive with coal prices on interna- tional markets and to privatize British Coal in the near future. To achieve that objective, the industry must strengthen the restructuring process, as a result of which a large number of underground mines are having to be closed, or production in them stopped and the installations moth- balled. Some pits which are not currently competitive need to be rationalized to enable production to become competitive. To this end, the United Kingdom Government has provided for the constitution of a provision not exceeding a total of £120 million to cover the operating losses of those pits temporarily by means of operating aid. This aid should enable the pits to find a market among power stations for the disposal of their production. The United Kingdom has put before Parliament a Bill on the privatization of British Coal and the creation of an independent body to be responsible, among other things, for issuing operating licences under a transparent, non- discriminatory scheme which would guarantee fair competition between all coal-mining undertakings. -