The European Commission will appeal against the European court’s ruling. The ruling, which was made at the beginning of this year, declared the government’s corona support unjustified. The Netherlands joins the appeal.
In February, the European Court struck down the European Commission’s approval of state aid for KLM. The European Commission disagrees and will appeal. The Dutch government will support this appeal, according to outgoing Minister of Finance Steven van Weyenberg. He doesn’t want to say more about it at the moment.
The case brought by Ryanair against Air France-KLM led to the ruling on February 7 that KLM should not have received the 3.4 billion euros in state aid. According to the judge, the committee should have investigated better whether the financial support only went to KLM and whether Air France did not also benefit from it.
The ruling led to the aid being annulled. It is still unknown how the statement will be realized in practice. The support of 3.4 billion euros consisted of a guarantee for a government loan and a bank loan, which have now been repaid to the government.
The case against KLM was not the only ongoing case in this area. The European Court also ruled in cases against Air France and Lufthansa that both had wrongly received state aid. These cases were both filed after complaints from Ryanair about unfair competition.
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Tags: European Commission Netherlands appeal
