Spain in tax-lease setback

摘要

Spain is finding it much harder than expected to come up with a tax-lease ship finance scheme the European Commission will recognise as compliant with EU competition rules. Like its Socialist Party predecessor, the recently elected People's Party government of Mariano Rajoy has had proposals for a scheme humiliatingly rebuffed by the Commission. Meanwhile, the shipbuilding sector is becoming increasingly desperate as work-starved yards wait for a new scheme to bring in the export orders on which their survival depends.