The EU Court of Justice annulled the two sentences with which the EU Court rejected the appeals of Volotea and easyJet on the Commission's decision on state aid granted by Italy to Sardinian airports .
Aid provided to the management companies of the island's airports and which had been used to finance low-cost airlines for the development of connecting air routes . But, according to the Commission, it was "illegal state aid and incompatible with the internal market".
According to the judges, however, it is not a question of state aid because the Commission has not demonstrated the existence of an advantage granted to the two airlines .
Volotea and easyJet, as well as other companies, had been deemed beneficiaries of this aid for their activities related to the airports of Cagliari-Elmas and Olbia . But in July 2016 the EU Commission had declared the aid granted to them by Italy illegal.
After the appeals had been rejected, it was decided that the companies would have to repay the aid to the Region of Sardinia , because "the management companies of the Sardinian airports are not the beneficiaries of the aid, but only the intermediaries".
At that point Volotea and easyJet brought an appeal before the Court of Justice .
Which today "annulls the judgments of the Court as well as the disputed decision in the part in which it concerns Volotea and easyJet". We are not dealing with state aid: "The classification as state aid - recalls the Court - , within the meaning of EU law, requires that all the conditions envisaged by the Fue Treaty are satisfied, including the one according to which the measure state in question in a given case must grant an advantage to the enterprise or enterprises that are beneficiaries . The Court also recalls that it follows from its settled case-law that such an advantage exists in the presence of any State measure which, irrespective of its form and objectives, is capable of favoring directly or indirectly one or more undertakings with respect to the situation in which they would find themselves market standards," explains the community justice body.
In the present case, the Court finds "that, in the contested judgments, the General Court did not verify whether the Commission had fulfilled, in the contested decision, its obligation to determine whether the contracts for the provision of services concluded between the airport management and airlines were normal market operations . Indeed, it held, erroneously, that the market economy operator principle was not applicable because the region had pursued public interest objectives and acted through airport management companies which were private undertakings. Furthermore, the General Court erred in law in holding that Volotea and easyJet should be regarded as having an advantage, on the ground that the remuneration which had been paid to them pursuant to the contracts which they had entered into with the airport management companies of Cagliari-Elmas and Olbia did not constitute consideration for services which satisfied effective needs for the region and that said contracts had also been stipulated without the prior implementation of a tender procedure or an equivalent procedure".
(Unioneonline/D)
