Ryanair’s case followed €1.2 billion given to TAP during Covid crisis
It has taken all of five years, but today the General court of the European Union has rejected the appeal lodged by low-cost airline Ryanair against Portuguese state aid of €1.2 billion given to the nation’s flagship airline TAP during the crisis that Covid-19 wreaked on aviation.
Ryanair’s case rested on the principle of non-discrimination, which it believed the state aid violated.
At the time (2020), Ryanair was reported as being “convinced” a decision would be “rapid”. But, of course, it was not: first came the result that yes, state aid was not given with adequate ‘reasoning’ – and then the appeal by the European Commission/ Portugal, which has now come back saying ‘actually, everything was above board’.
As Lusa explains: “For the General Court, the principles of non-discrimination, freedom to provide services and freedom of establishment have also not been violated”, added to which “Ryanair’s claims” that the European Commission’s analysis of its case “was incomplete and insufficient and that the decision was not sufficiently reasoned” were also rejected.
In 2021, in the throes of this legal battle, Ryanair president Michael O’Leary launched into a characteristic salvo of criticism of the Portugal’s support for TAP, suggesting the money was not an investment (to help the airline through the crisis in which aviation all but ground to a halt), but ‘taxpayers money being thrown down the toilet’.
The airline is now in the process of being re-privatised, after over €3 billion in state ‘investment’, thus it will soon become clear if taxpayers’ money has been ‘thrown down the toilet’. (Former prime minister António Costa did stress some years ago that no deal was likely to recoup all the money invested in the airline).
But while Ryanair has been unsuccessful in this particular court case, it has won others – lodged very much on the same basis – against state aid paid out in Italy and in Germany.
natasha.donn@portugalresident.com
Source material: LUSA
