Ryanair sues EU Commission over competition complaint

(LONDON) - Ryanair, the Irish low-cost carrier, said Tuesday it would sue the European Commission over "its repeated failure" to tackle "illegal" state aid to rival European airlines.

Ryanair said it was presenting a case against the European Union's top competition watchdog at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg based on complaints about state aid to Air France, Lufthansa, Alitalia and Olympic Airways submitted to the Commission more than a year ago.

"These complaints involved hundreds of millions of euros in illegal state aids being granted by the French, German, Italian and Greek governments to subsidise their flag carrier airlines," Ryanair said in a statement.

"Although Ryanair has called on the Commission several times to investigate these claims, the Commission has failed to do so," it added.

In Brussels a Commission spokesman said "the application to the European Court of Justice by Ryanair has not been communicated to the Commission."

"We will of course, once we receive it, carefully study it," he said.

"We believe that the Commission has been dealing with the cases both fairly and effectively in accordance with our duties. We are confident that, when reviewing our action, the court will confirm this."

Ryanair's Head of Regulatory Affairs, Jim Callaghan, accused the Commission of a twin-track approach to state aid.

"On one hand they refuse to take action against serious violations of the state aid rules by national governments to protect their flag carrier airlines ... while at the same time they launch bogus investigations against small regional and secondary airports like Charleroi."

Ryanair has been found guilty of breaching competition rules over subsidies to land at the Belgian airport.

The European Commission and Ryanair are already headed for a dogfight in an EU court as regulators last month blocked the low-cost carrier's takeover of Irish rival Aer Lingus.

The EC vetoed the takeover on the grounds that the merger of Ireland's two biggest airlines would have given the combined carrier a crushing grip on 35 routes.