Germany and other countries supported Lufthansa with billions during the pandemic. The money was paid back long ago, and the dispute in court continues.
The legal dispute over the billions in Corona state aid for Lufthansa continues. The company has appealed against the EU court’s ruling that the EU Commission should not have approved the aid from the German state. This was confirmed by a company spokeswoman in Frankfurt.
In its judgment from May, the court accused the EU Commission of “obvious errors of assessment” and declared the approval null and void. A key accusation was that the competition authorities should have checked more closely whether Lufthansa still had its own collateral in order to obtain loans for itself. In addition, Lufthansa’s market position at individual airports had not been adequately checked.
Competitors Ryanair and Condor had sued. It is about a partial package of six billion euros from silent participations and a block of shares that had been held by the federal economic stabilization fund (WSF). Overall, the states of Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Belgium had provided the group with an aid framework of 9 billion euros to avert the impending bankruptcy in the corona shock. The aid was repaid in full by the company after the end of the pandemic last year.
The appeal has been lodged with the European Court of Justice, the spokeswoman said. It initially remained unclear whether the EU Commission and the German Federal Government would join the appeal. There is a deadline for this.
Source: Stern
