Portugal’s rescue of TAP – Transportes Aéreos de Portugal

31.12.2020

Priority question for written answer  P-007104/2020
to the Commission
Rule 138
Nuno Melo (PPE)

On 10 June, the EU ruled that the airline TAP was not eligible to receive support under the Commission’s temporary framework for State aid (2020/C 91 I/01) that gives Member States greater flexibility in granting State aid to support the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The EU assessed the support under its guidelines on State aid for rescuing and restructuring (2014/C 249/01) undertakings in difficulty.

The airline Condor, after being kept afloat following the bankruptcy of the Thomas Cook Group by a EUR 380 million loan underwritten by the German Government in late 2019, received EUR 550 million under the temporary framework in April 2020.

Portugal is the only Member State to bail out its airline under the rescue and restructuring guidelines. Like many other companies in the sector, TAP has seen a significant decline in business and suffered heavy losses as a result of the travel restrictions imposed to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Given that the airline Condor was given access to the temporary framework in April 2020, despite dicing with bankruptcy in 2019, why was TAP not given the same treatment?