Finland asks EU to probe France ship deal

(HELSINKI) - Finland said Tuesday it has asked the European Commission to shed light on French state subsidies given to shipbuilder STX France to help it clinch a one billion-euro ($1.33 billion) cruise ship order.

Miami-based Royal Caribbean International announced late last month that an order for a sister ship to its two top-of-the-line cruise liners, with an option on a second vessel, would go to STX France.

Rival STX Finland was also in the running for the order, and has said that it might have to shed hundreds of jobs -- out of a total of 2,200 -- after losing the order.

The Finnish government had turned down a request from the troubled company for a 50 million-euro loan to help it secure the order.

Finnish Economic Affairs Minister Jan Vapaavuori's cabinet confirmed to AFP on Tuesday that Vapaavuori and Labour Minister Lauri Ihalainen "signed and sent a letter to the Commission yesterday."

"The content (of the letter) was just to make sure that France has followed the EU rules," the cabinet official said.

"There aren't any likely suspicions that France has done something wrong but (this is) just to make sure that everything went according to the rules because this has been a huge case in Finland," he said.

On December 28, Vapaavuori said he wanted to "make sure the French had respected EU rules."

His French counterpart Pierre Moscovici has said that Paris "did all it could to save the Chantiers de l'Atlantique (shipyard) with perfect respect for European regulations, of course."

The Finnish economic affairs ministry is to set up a working group by the end of the week to reflect on the future of Finland's struggling shipbuilding sector.

The Finnish economy entered recession in the third quarter, weighed down by slowing exports that has sparked a national debate over the country's competitiveness.