2024-07-08 20:01:39
Just over a year ago, the EU General Court annulled the approval of billions in Corona aid for Lufthansa. Now the EU Commission is reacting.
The EU Commission is launching an investigation into the billions in state aid granted to Lufthansa during the Corona pandemic. The aim is to clarify whether the aid was in line with European state aid rules.
The background to the investigation is a ruling by the EU General Court about a year ago. The judges in Luxembourg had decided that the EU Commission should not have approved the aid amounting to around six billion euros. The EU Commission had made several errors in its assessment, and the EU General Court had therefore declared the Commission’s approval void.
The competition authorities should have examined more closely whether Lufthansa still had its own collateral to obtain loans, the court said. The court also criticized the fact that Lufthansa’s market power at the airports was underestimated.
The Commission is now reviewing its decision again and will take into account Lufthansa’s market power at the airports in Vienna and Düsseldorf. However, the authority stresses that the initiation of an investigation does not say anything about its outcome.
The travel restrictions during the pandemic had brought Lufthansa’s business to a virtual standstill. Tens of thousands of jobs were at risk in the group, which employs around 138,000 people. This is why the German government supported Germany’s largest airline in spring 2020