France faces legal action over illegal state aid for Ryanair
France has been referred to the European Court of Justice for failing to recover nearly €10 million in illegal state aid received by Ryanair and Dutch low-cost Transavia.
The two airlines received the money from the French government in return for basing operations at three French regional airports – Pau Pyrenees, Nimes and Angouleme.
A year ago, the European Commission ordered France to get the money back, arguing it had given Ryanair and Transavia an unfair advantage over rivals.
It says France must recall €6.3 million from Ryanair over the use of Nimes airport, €2.4 million for Pau and €870,000 for Angouleme.
Meanwhile, it must take back €420,000 from Transavia in relation to Pau.
“The European Commission has referred France to the European Court of Justice for failing to recover incompatible aid received by Ryanair and its subsidiary Airport Marketing Services (AMS) for using Pau, Nimes and Angouleme airports, as well as Transavia for using Pau airport,” it said in a statement.
France had earlier failed to recover the money from Ryanair after the airline appealed against the move.
But the Commission says France is breaking European law by suspending its efforts to recover the funds.
"Member states have to recover state aid that has been found incompatible by the Commission, within the deadline set in the Commission decision,” said the statement from the Commission.
"This is very important because delays in the recovery of unlawful subsidies maintain the distortion of competition created by the aid."
Ryanair ceased operations at Pau Pyrenees in 2011 and at Angouleme in 2009.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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