Court to rule in Ryanair case against Croatia Airlines aid

The European General Court has begun hearing Ryanair’s case against the European Commission’s decision in 2020 to approve 11.7 million euros in state aid to Croatia Airlines aimed at compensating the carrier for losses incurred as a result of the coronavirus outbreak and travel restrictions introduced by Croatia and other countries to limit the spread of the virus in the period between March 19, 2020, and June 30, 2020. Proceedings kicked off yesterday morning, with a ruling on the matter to be made in November. Ryanair is using four arguments in its case involving aid granted to Croatia Airlines, as shown in the court document below:

Commenting on the matter, Ryanair said, “The EU Commission’s spineless approach to state aid since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis has allowed member states to write open-ended cheques to their inefficient zombie flag carriers in the name of faded national prestige. The EU commission has hastily approved over thirty billion euros of discriminatory state aid since the crisis began”. Ryanair has launched similar action against a number of state aid decisions involving carriers in France, Belgium, Sweden and Italy. The General Court has already ruled in Ryanair’s favour in cases involving Air France, KLM, TAP Air Portugal and Condor but the has held off on requesting the airlines to pay back the funds immediately.

In addition to the 11.7 million euros Croatia Airlines was given to cover losses incurred between March and June 2020, the carrier has also been granted 33.2 million euros as an equity loan by the government and has been recapitalised by the state through a 46.2-million-euro cash injection in order to “return the airline’s capital to pre-Covid levels i.e., to the same levels as on December 31, 2019”. This summer, the Croatian government distributed aid amounting to 45.4 million euros to the country’s aviation sector in the form of subsidised interest rates on loans. The recipients of the aid, and the amounts each received, have not been made public yet. The Croatian government has twelve months to do so from the moment the contracts were concluded, meaning they are unlikely to be revealed before June of next year.

EX-YU Aviation News

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