EU questions Alitalia nationalisation plan
 

Italy will have to review its plan to nationalise and relaunch Alitalia (AZ, Rome Fiumicino) as a leaner airline if the European Commission decides not to approve it, the business daily Il Sole 24 Ore reported. European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager reportedly told the Italian government that the relaunch as it stands is not acceptable and requested an alternative plan.

The European Commission would typically oppose such state intervention. Still, given the unprecedented crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic and the fact that Alitalia is running out of cash, Rome had assumed it would be unlikely Brussels would complain.

But Vestager made it clear that the commission was still investigating two state loans of EUR900 million euros (USD1.1 billion when it was provided in 2017) and EUR400 million (USD443 million) provided at the start of this year.

https://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/n...alisation-plan

Any idea whether they'll review Alitalia because it's... Alitalia, or whether they'll review all similar cases such as Lufthansa?

The difficulty with Alitalia is that they had already received aid from the Italian government prior to the Covid-19 crisis, which was still under investigation. The whole package of aid that Alitalia has received cannot be entirely justified as being necessary to face covid19. LH is in a very different situation, in that the assistance is more clearly related to covid-19. The Commission will investigate all those aids but it is clear that it is going to be far more vigilant in the former case than in the latter as the risk of unlawful aid is clearly much stronger in the former than in the latter.