The Polish authorities notified in December 2007, a regional investment aid in favour of Dell Poland for a large investment project aiming at setting up a new plant for the production of desktops, notebooks and servers in an assisted Article 87.3 a) region in Poland and for the creation of 3.000 jobs. The project's eligible costs amount to 189,58 M€ and the proposed aid amount is 52,73 M€, which corresponds to an aid intensity of 27,81 % GGE.

By means of a letter dated December 10th 2008 (reproduced in Polish in the Official Journal of the European Union, January, 31st, 2009), the Commission notified Poland of its decision to initiate the procedure laid down in Article 88.2 of the EC Treaty concerning the  aid measure granted to Dell Products Poland for a large investment project.

Desktops and Notebooks Market definition

This decision is based on the arisen doubts with respect to the plausible product market definition for desktops and notebooks as a single product market or as separate product markets, which has an incidence with respect to considering whether the corresponding markets are in decline.

Besides, doubts have also arisen with respect to the adequate  market delineation for the servers product market servers and for the geographic market for servers (EEA or worldwide), which has a potential incidence on the market share test.

Since the project will add a significant capacity to the market (above the 5 % threshold for all products concerned by the investment project) and the average annual growth rates for some of the products concerned show a decline in value terms over the last five years (servers as a whole and desktops) there are doubts concerning the compliance of the project with the capacity increase test.

The Polish authorities indicate that, taking into account the trade-off between the foreseen reduction in production capacity in other Member States and the increase in production capacity in Poland, the overall increase in capacity for desktops would be below 5 % of the EEA market for desktops in 2006. However, the Commission doubts whether this calculation can be accepted if the reduction in operations in another Member State does not form part of the investment project for which the aid has been notified.

Given the doubts regarding the market delineation for the products concerned, the capacity increase generated by the project and the decline shown by some of the products concerned, it has been decided to open the formal investigation procedure to carry out the in-depth economic assessment as foreseen in the RAG.

Interested parties may submit their comments on the measure in respect of which the Commission is initiating the procedure within one month of the date of publication, addressing to:

European Commission
Directorate-General for Competition
State aid Greffe
B-1049 Brussels
Fax (32-2) 296 12 42

These comments will be communicated to Germany. Confidential treatment of the identity of the interested party submitting the comments may be requested in writing, stating the reasons for the request.