Ryanair has today welcomed the EU’s General Court decision to annul the European Commission’s 2020 decision to approve French state aid worth €7 billion for Air France meant to soften the economic shock of the coronavirus pandemic.

The case was one of many brought by Ryanair, Europe’s biggest budget airline, against the state aid granted throughout Europe to airlines to help them survive the Covid-19 pandemic, which crippled international air travel.

Ryanair said it was now calling on the European Commission to order France to immediately recover this state aid package from Air France-KLM and impose “adequate remedies” to repair at least some of the damage to competition done by the state bailout.

A spokesperson for the airline said that the European Commission’s approval of the French State aid to Air France-KLM in 2020 went against the fundamental principles of EU law, like the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of nationality.

“Today’s judgments confirm that the Commission must act as a guardian of the level playing field in air transport and cannot sign-off discriminatory State aid issued by national governments. The Court’s intervention is a triumph for fair competition and consumers across the EU,” the spokesperson said.

The airline noted that during the Covid-19 pandemic over €40 billion in “discriminatory” State subsidies was given to EU flag carriers.

“The EU General Court has already ruled in other cases concerning Covid-19 State aid that billions of euros in aid received by SAS, Lufthansa and certain Italian airlines were unlawful,” it noted.

But the airline added that the European Commission’s Directorate General for Competition has still not acted to force recovery of the unlawful aid, nor has it imposed any measures to remedy the damage to competition caused by the Swedish, Danish, German, and Italian governments favouring their local airlines over other EU airlines, in breach of EU law.

“Today’s judgments underline the need for the European Commission to immediately act to recover these illegal State aid packages and order remedies to restore at least some of the damage done to competition,” it stated.