Ryanair to sue European Commision over 'State Aid' complaints

Ryanair has announced that it will sue the European Commission in the European Courts for its 'repeated failure' to take action on a number of State Aid complaints involving Air France, Lufthansa, Alitalia and Olympic Airways, which were submitted to the Commission over a year ago.

These complaints involved hundreds of millions of euro in illegal state aids being granted by the French, German, Italian and Greek Governments to subsidise their flag carrier airlines. Although Ryanair has called on the Commission several times to investigate these claims, the Commission has failed to do so.

Confirming that Ryanair is in the process of submitting a complaint against the Commission to the European Courts, Ryanair’s head of regulatory affairs, Jim Callaghan, said: "This is another example of the Commission’s twin track approach to state aid.

"On one hand they refuse to take action against serious violations of the state aid rules by national Governments to protect their flag carrier airlines like Air France, Lufthansa, Alitalia and Olympic, while at the same time they launch bogus investigations against small regional and secondary airports like Charleroi."