Brussels, 04/02/2004 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday, several MEPs reacted favourably to the European Commission's decision to call on Ryanair to pay back part of the aid received, by invoking the general interest of taxpayers compared to that of the many travellers who, for the past few years, have been enjoying the particularly low air fares of the Irish company (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.7). Georg Jarzembowski (CDU) said it is "unacceptable for taxpayers to indirectly subsidise airline companies to allow a few people to travel at less and less cost". After this decision, Werner Langen said it will no doubt be necessary to examine the situation of other regional airports, such as that in Hahn (Rhineland Palatinate), whose majority owner is the company Frankfurter Flughafen GmbH. British Liberal Chris Huhne notes that subsidies "end up costing the taxpayer a small fortune", and that other low-cost airlines such as Fly Be and Easyjet (which use airports such as Stansted and Southampton) were much less reliant than Ryanair on subsidised landing rights. The Greens, for their part, put forward environmental arguments. Caroline Lucas of Britain recalls: "We have long pushed for the introduction of an international tax on kerosene aviation fuel. (…) Air travel is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions". Her Belgian colleague Pierre Jonckheer takes a more mitigated view saying: "Charleroi Airport acted in good faith in order to secure jobs and investment in an area of Belgium which needed it badly. (…) To avoid European regional airports competing against each other (…) the Commission must quickly propose new guidelines on state funding and set up a list of European airports distributing state aid to private companies".