The 2019 funding is illegitimate
This was established by the European Commission with a script that has been repeated over the years and brings the total of “non-repayable” aid to the benefit of Alitalia to 1.6 billion. The loan targeted by the Commission is the one granted by the government of Joseph Conte for yet another rescue attempt by the former national airline. A year later, in 2020, Ita Airways would be born, leaving the debts in the bad company Alitalia Sai and firing the staff.
But already earlier, the government of Paolo Gentiloni, now European Commissioner for the Economy, he had seen fit to lend credit to Alitalia Sai, the one that should have taken off thanks to the Emirates company Ethiad. He who is today in Brussels a colleague of the competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager. And also to Alitalia Cai, the one of the brave captains wanted at the control yoke by Silvio Berlusconi.
Regardless of the political color, therefore, the technique of the Italian governments always seems the same: to finance the former national airline knowing that the money will never come back, contrary to what the former minister claimed Charles Calenda in the second tranche of the 900 million allocated by the Gentiloni government.
The only different note: the timing with which the Commission acts from time to time. In the case of the Berlusconi government, Brussels defined the aid as illicit within six months. For Gentiloni, however, the process was much longer: 5 years. With a lot of electoral passage in the middle.
Brussels has decided that Italy will have to recover the money
Exactly as for the loans from Gentolini and that from Berlusconi, the Commission has ordered Italy “to recover from Alitalia illegitimate and incompatible aid” with EU rules “plus interest”. In the event of the company’s bankruptcy, Alitalia will be able to reimburse the sum “up to the limit of the revenues obtained from the sale of its assets”.
In practice, “in the case of an insolvent company, the elimination of the distortion of competition can be achieved by registering the requests relating to the illegal aid in the hierarchy of creditors of the bankruptcy procedure underway under extraordinary administration” specified the Commission spokeswoman European Commission for Competition, Arianna Podestà. “Therefore, the 400 million will be repaid by Alitalia within the limits of the revenues obtained from the sale of the company’s assets and the value of any remaining assets that are not sold,” she concluded. Translated, since Alitalia Sai has very little left, for the public coffers, the loans translate into a deadweight loss which weighs further on the public accounts.
For Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti, the decision was expected
“Ita’s exclusion from requests for repayment of the bridging loan to Alitalia is proof that we are right and will continue on this path. The conclusions of the EU Commission they were expected and widely anticipated” the minister said. And, in fact, with his provision, Brussels attacks only Alitalia you know, not also the company led by Fabio Lazzerini.
This is not a small aspect considering that the government fears that a continuity profile could emerge between Alitalia sai and Ita. Such an option would underlie the plan to divide the bad company from good assets ending up in Italy on the basis of a sales contract which, however, has never been made public.
According to what appears to Truth&Business, the Germans at Lufthansa fear this argument. Mainly due to the fact that it would bring a wave of workers’ lawsuits and the consequent obligation to hire all former Alitalia workers in Ita. Hence the request for a discount on the price, also closely linked to the increases recently granted to personnel, and the delays in the formalization of the German offer for 40% of the company led by Lazzerini.