(BRUSSELS) - Italian authorities have given the European Commission a letter explaining how they plan to help troubled airline Alitalia and EU regulators are examining the scheme, a spokesman said Wednesday.

"There was a meeting this afternoon between the Italian authorities and the commission. They gave us a letter explaining their plan," commission transport spokesman Michele Cercone said.

"We are now going to examine it and we will inform them of any steps to be taken," said the spokesman for the commission, the EU's top competition regulator.

Cercone declined to say whether the letter constituted a formal notification of Italy's rescue plan, which is an obligatory step in state aid cases. Rome insists that its scheme is not state aid.

On Tuesday, he underlined that Alitalia had already received state aid in the past and that under EU rules it would not be entitled to do so again before 2011.

Earlier Wednesday, prime minister-elect Silvio Berlusconi vowed that Italian money would rescue Alitalia after securing an emergency bridging loan for the ailing flagship from the outgoing government.

Alitalia's future has been up in the air since April 2, when Air France-KLM formally withdrew a takeover offer in response to demands by unions at the airline which it considered unacceptable.

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