EU State Aid During Covid-19 - Discrimination Between Airlines?

Abstract: This thesis analyses the state aid given to European airlines during the Covid-19 pandemic and looks into Ryanair’s arguments that member states discriminated between airlines, targeting their own national carriers with aid while forsaking budget airlines and non-national airlines. Two research questions were posed, investigating how member states applied the Temporary Framework for state aid set up by the European Commission and whether states discriminated between airlines. Using the legal dogmatic tailored towards EU law and a case study analysis, the first question was answered by studying the European airline industry and types of airlines, discerning the Temporary Framework and its basis on Articles 107(2)(b) and 107(3)(b) TFEU, and looking into member states’ application of the Framework on their airlines (amount, reasoning, beneficiaries). The second question was answered by analysing the case of Ryanair and the sixteen cases it filed in the General Court against the Commission. Each finalised case was studied, comparing those lost by Ryanair and those it won. This thesis, agreeing with the Court’s judgements, found that states did not discriminate between airlines, since it limited their aid to airlines holding a national operating license (targeting both national and budget airlines). The cases that Ryanair won were decided on the basis that the Commission did not justify its reasons for approving the state aid notifications well. Thus, discrimination between airlines based on their type did not occur thus far but instead limited state resources to businesses operating out of their own state.