Europe’s competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in Madrid on Thursday that “covert aid” from a tax-lease system in operation between 2005 and 2011 must be repaid, El Pais newspaper reported.

Banks and private investors will be affected by the measures, which could hit 19 shipyard awarded tax credits to build vessels.

Almunia said investors will pay the price, not the yards, but employers and policy makers in shipbuilding heartlands like Galicia, the Basque country and Asturias called the move “the death of the shipyards," the paper said.

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