Brussels investigating Alitalia loans as illegal state aid
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Brussels is investigating whether €900m in bridging loans to Alitalia from the Italian government were illegal under the bloc’s state aid rules.
The Italian airline filed for bankruptcy on May 2, 2017 and was provided with two loans from the national government — €600m in May and a further €300m 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.
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