In total, the court canceled the assistance to airlines in the amount of almost 120 billion crowns.
The European Union’s tribunal today upheld a complaint from the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair and overturned a European Commission (EC) decision approving state aid to the Dutch airline KLM and the Portuguese airline TAP due to the effects of the coronavirus crisis. In the case of KLM, the commission approved aid to the Netherlands of EUR 3.4 billion (CZK 86.6 billion), in the case of TAP airlines, the approved aid was EUR 1.2 billion (CZK 30.6 billion). Recovery shall be postponed until the Commission has decided again and, if necessary, explain the reasons better.
However, Ryanair has failed to make another complaint concerning Spain and its assistance to companies affected by the coronavirus crisis. In this case, the EU Tribunal ruled that the ten billion euros (CZK 254.6 billion) provided by Madrid to Spanish strategic companies were in line with EU law.
“Ryanair welcomes the decision of the EU Court that the State aid conditions favoring Air France-KLM and TAP were in breach of EU law,” Ryanair, the largest low-cost airline in Europe, said in a press release. “Although the covid-19 crisis has caused damage to all airlines that contribute to and connect with the economies of the Netherlands and Portugal, the governments of these countries have decided to support only their national air carriers.” added.
Ryanair has filed a total of 16 complaints to the commission for authorizing state aid to individual airlines such as Lufthansa, KLM, Austrian Airlines and TAP, as well as national plans, most of which favor flag carriers, Reuters said.
The EU tribunal justified the cancellation of the aid to KLM by stating that the Dutch government had not sufficiently demonstrated that such aid was necessary. The notified aid consisted of a state guarantee to secure a loan to be provided to airlines by a consortium of banks, as well as a state loan. With this measure, the Netherlands intended to provide its flag airlines with the liquidity needed to cope with the effects of the pandemic on KLM’s operations.
KLM is part of the French-Dutch holding company Air France-KLM. Already on 4 May last year, the European Commission declared the individual aid granted by France to Air France to be compatible with the internal market. The support for Air France consisted of a state guarantee and a shareholder loan totaling EUR 7 billion (CZK 178.2 billion).
In April, the same EU court backed the European Commission by approving aid to Scandinavian airlines SAS and Finnair. In February, the court also upheld state aid granted to competing airlines, including Air France and SAS.
The EU General Court is the second highest court in the Union. In another decision today, in an unrelated case, he sided with the flagship German airline Lufthansa, which objected to state aid to the operator of the airport in Frankfurt am Main. According to Lufthansa, the aid favors its competitor Ryanair and the EU General Court has now ruled in favor of Lufthansa. It therefore annulled the European Commission’s decision of 2017 approving the aid to the airport operator.
ČTK
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