Brussels is investigating whether €900 million in bridging loans to Alitalia from the Italian government were illegal under Europe's state aid rules.
The Italian airline filed for bankruptcy on May 2nd, 2017, and was provided with two loans from the national government – €600 million in May and a further €300 million in October.
The European Commission announced its probe on Monday. It will investigate concerns that the loans were not repaid within six months and may have been larger than necessary.
Margrethe Vestager, EU competition commissioner, said: “The commission has a duty to make sure that loans given to companies by member states are in line with the EU rules on state aid. We will investigate whether this is the case for Alitalia.”
There is no deadline to complete the investigation. Any illegal state aid would need to be repaid.
“The commission’s current view is that the State loan may constitute State aid. It will now investigate further whether the loan satisfies the conditions under the Guidelines,” a statement said.
At the time of entering bankruptcy Alitalia was losing about €1 million a day and risked running out of money within the month. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2018