Brussels, 26/06/2001 (Agence Europe) - "The Commission's doctrine is clear: State aid to airline companies is prohibited" the Commissioner for Transport, Loyola de Palacio, recalled when questioned on a possible capital injection for the Belgian airline company, Sabena, at a time when the company's general assembly, scheduled or Tuesday, was postponed. "If the private shareholder doesn't come up with the goods, it's up to the company to find other shareholders and to present a business plan. The problem is that Sabena has so far not done so", the Commissioner observed before a group of journalists. The Commission could agree to State aid for Sabena in the framework of a comprehensive plan comprising private shareholders, "as it is currently doing for the Portuguese company TAP", she commented. If the Belgian State decides to inject more capital into Sabena, however, it would have to demonstrate that it was acting as a "normal shareholder, taking account of the profits to make", she stipulated.
Generally speaking, the case of Sabena is a symptom of the problems of restructuring encountered by European airline companies, due to "open-skies" agreements between certain Member States of the EU and the United States, which prevent any possibility of merger between European companies. The Commissioner hoped that the ruling of the Court of Justice, expected this autumn, on the "open-skies" agreements concluded by nine Member States will allow for the situation to be clarified. "We must increasingly think in terms of European airline companies and not national", she considered.