RYR CONDEMNS COMMISSION
Ryanair Holdings PLC
28 November 2007
RYANAIR CONDEMNS EUROPEAN COMMISSION'S LATEST ABUSE
OF THE STATE AID RULES
Ryanair, Europe's largest low fares airline, today (Wednesday, 28th November
2007) criticised the EU Commission for its ongoing bias in the enforcement of
the state aid rules and for continuing to bring baseless cases against tiny
regional airports like Pau and Tampere while failing to take any action on the
numerous state aid cases against flag carrier airlines brought by Ryanair.
Ryanair has filed complaints regarding over €1 billion in illegal state aid
provided by the French Government to Air France (in the form of discounted
domestic fees); hundreds of millions in subsidies to Lufthansa (below market
airport charges and exclusive use of the new terminal in Munich); and blatant
ongoing state aid by the Italian and Greek Governments who continue to bail out
their terminally ill national airlines.
Meanwhile, the mighty EU Commission continues to take completely spurious
actions against tiny regional and secondary airports such as Pau, Tampere,
Luebeck and Alghero, who are trying to develop traffic and provide competition
and choice to European consumers. These investigations are based on spurious
complaints by flag carrier airlines trying to block competition and undermine
the growth of these small airports. The complaint in Pau is a complete nonsense
and is further evidence that the Commission (DG TREN) operates a discriminatory
system by ignoring billions of illegal state aid to the flag carrier airlines,
while launching ridiculous state aid investigations to undermine competition at
tiny regional airports.
Ryanair's Head of Regulatory Affairs, Jim Callaghan, said:
'This is further proof that the EU Commission (DG TREN) operates one
rule for the flag carrier airlines and their National Governments, who
continue to provide massive amounts of illegal state aid to them, and a
completely different rule for tiny airports like Pau who are bringing
low fares competition and choice to European consumers and are
developing traffic and new routes to destinations around Europe, which
were formerly denied to them by Air France and others.
'The politically corrupt way in which the Commission applies these the
state aid rules is demonstrated by their legally flawed decision in the
Charleroi case, an airport that has experienced phenomenal growth in the
past three years (since the decision) and the airport is about to open a
brand new terminal. Ryanair has been pushing to get a hearing in the
European courts to have this decision overturned but the Commission is
delaying this hearing.
'We will continue to fight these ongoing abuses by the Commission of its
state aid rules and its corrupt failure to investigate the real culprits
- the flag carriers - who continue to be massively supported and
subsidised by their national Governments'.
Ends. Wednesday, 28th November 2007
For reference: Peter Sherrard - Ryanair Pauline McAlester - Murray Consultants
Tel: +353-1-8121228 Tel: +353-1-4980300
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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