A spokesman for the airline confirmed today in a statement that the company will appeal against that decision to the EU Court of Justice, the EU's highest administrative body. "One of the EU's greatest achievements is the creation of a genuine single market for air transport. The approval by the European Commission of Finnish, Danish and Swedish state support goes against the principles of Community law," said the Ryanair spokesman. In the opinion of Ryanair, Europe's leader in the low-cost sector, the TGUE decision nullifies the "30 years of liberalization process" in this market, allowing those countries to have "grant advantages" to "their national flag airlines" over " more efficient competitors ", according to a criterion" based solely on nationality ".

"We are now going to ask the EU Court of Justice to cancel these unfair subsidies in the interests of competition and consumers," said the spokesman. In several similar judgments, the ECJ today considered that all such aid was "in compliance" with EU law, while observing in the Finnish case that "the guarantee was necessary to remedy the serious disturbance in the Finnish economy, taking into account the Finnair's importance to this economy ". In the case of Sweden and Denmark in the Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), the court applies the same reasoning and rejects the arguments of Ryanair, an airline that also brought the European Commission's authorisation to the Spanish Government to finance the rescue of Air Europe through the Strategic Business Solvency Support Fund.

Ryanair insisted today that the "lax" position taken by the EU executive in relation to state aid aimed at alleviating the impact of the new coronavirus pandemic in the sector, has allowed some member countries to "extend open controls" to "their airlines. inefficient national flag and 'zombies' ", to also protect" your lost prestige ". "The European Commission has hastily approved more than 30 billion euros of discriminatory state aid since the start of the crisis," concluded Ryanair in the statement. These 30 billion euros of state aid to the aviation sector include, among others, support for carriers Lufthansa Group (11 billion), Air France-KLM (10.6 billion), Alitalia (3.5 billion), SAS (1.3 billion), Finnair (1,200 million euros) and TAP (1,200 million euros), underlines Ryanair in the statement. The carriers Norwegian, LOT, Condor and Air Europa received the remaining state support approved by the European Commission.