Brussels, 15/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is awaiting details from Italy about its planned €500 million bailout of the country's flagship air carrier, Alitalia, to see whether the aid complies with EU's competition rules, explained Antoine Colombani, spokesman for the EU Competition Commissioner, on Tuesday 15 October, adding that the Commission has not received any formal complaints about the planned aid.
The aid plan was drawn up last week as a matter of urgency to prevent the airline going out of business and will provide up to €300 million in cash (unanimously approved by the board), €75 million of it from state-owned company Poste Italiane (the Italian post office). Banks Unicredit and Intesa would guarantee to invest up to €100 million if current shareholders agree. Poste Italiane would buy a 12% stake in the airline. All eyes at the moment are on Air France-KLM, which owns 25% of Alitalia, to see whether it will take part and possibly take control of the Italian airline by increasing its stake to 50%.
The possibility of Poste Italiane taking a stake in Alitalia has been criticised by British Airways and other players, which say it amounts to indirect state aid from Italy that breaches EU competition rules as it amounts to a form of industrial protectionism. IAG, the holding company for British Airways, Iberia and Vueling, says that it expects the European Commission to suspend this clearly unauthorised state aid.
The Commission spokesman said that no formal complaints had been lodged, but the fact that aid was provided by a company under state control rather than directly by the state itself did not mean that it did not amount to state aid if the investment failed to meet the criterion of being what an operator acting in a market economy would do and if it was not done under the same conditions as the investments by private investors (a pari passu criterion). (FG/transl.fl)