Brussels, 09/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has opened an in-depth investigation to examine whether a €25 million capital injection by SEA SpA, the publicly owned manager of Milan airport, Italy, in favour of its new ground-handling subsidiary, Airport Handling, which started operating on 1 July 2014, is in line with EU state aid rules.
The Commission will examine whether this capital injection is a circumvention of its December 2012 decision, which required the repayment of incompatible aid granted by SEA SpA to its then ground-handling subsidiary SEA Handling. The Commission has concerns that the aim and result of creating the new company was to avoid repaying the incompatible state aid, since the scope of the transferred activities, the price of the transferred assets, the identity of shareholders and the timing and economic logic of the operation all seem to indicate that Airport Handling is, in fact, the successor of SEA Handling (which was wound up in June 2014). If the investigation finds that all economic links with the previous ground-handler have not been fully severed, the €25 million injection could be considered to be state aid. (MD)