According to an anonymous source, the European Commission has made a decision under which state aid provided to Latvian national carrier Air Baltic has been illegal and the airline must now repay state aid within 9 years, E24 wrote yesterday.
Liene Dupate, press spokesperson of Air Baltic, told E24 that it was nothing but speculation and Air Baltic has recently received no news from the European Commission regarding state aid.
When the Latvian government took over Air Baltic in December 2011, it injected about 58 million lats in the airline. The European Commission has been probing two state loans: a 16 million lat loan give in October 2011 and a 41 million lat loan issued in December 2011. Air Baltic ended 2012 with a loss of 19 million lats, while the loss in 2011 was 83 million lats.
Dark clouds over Estonian Air as well
If the speculation is true, a similar fate could easily hit Estonian national carrier Estonian Air.
The European Commission is already examining the legality of previous loans and aid packages to the company with regard to competition laws and excessive reliance on taxpayers. One of the specific issues being examined by the commission is the suspected violation of the condition that governments can only give rescue aid once every 10 years.
The Estonian government bought back most of the airline's shares from SAS in 2010. Since 2009, the airline has received state aid on numerous occasions, including three capital injections totaling 57 million euros.
Toomas Hõbemägi
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