Authorisation for State aid pursuant to Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union

Cases where the Commission raises no objections

(Text with EEA relevance)

(2018/C 406/01)

The authentic text(s) of the decision, from which all confidential information has been removed, can be found at:

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The authentic text(s) of the decision, from which all confidential information has been removed, can be found at:

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The authentic text(s) of the decision, from which all confidential information has been removed, can be found at:

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Authorisation for State aid pursuant to Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union

Cases where the Commission raises no objections

(Text with EEA relevance, except for products falling under Annex I of the Treaty)

(2018/C 406/02)

The authentic text(s) of the decision, from which all confidential information has been removed, can be found at:

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STATE AID — FRANCE

SA.47867 (2017/FC) — Alleged aid to Ryanair at Montpellier airport

Invitation to submit comments pursuant to Article 108(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union

(Text with EEA relevance)

(2018/C 406/03)

By means of the letter dated 4 July 2018 reproduced in the authentic language on the pages following this summary, the Commission notified France of its decision to initiate the procedure laid down in Article 108(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union concerning the above mentioned measures.

Interested parties may submit their comments on the measures in respect of which the Commission is initiating the procedure within one month of the date of publication of this summary and the following letter, to:

These comments will be communicated to France. Confidential treatment of the identity of the interested party submitting the comments may be requested in writing, stating the reasons for the request.

On 23 March 2017, the Commission received a complaint alleging that public regional and local entities in the area surrounding the city of Montpellier (France), granted unlawful State aid to Ryanair between 2010 and 2015 to support its air transport operations from the Montpellier airport. The aid would have been channelled through marketing agreements concluded by the Association for the Promotion of Touristic and Economic Flows (‘APFTE’) with Ryanair.

The APFTE is an association set up in 2010. It currently has 26 members, including representatives of various public regional and local entities as well as of 19 private entities active in the tourism sector. Since it was set up, the APFTE has been funded almost entirely by public regional and local entities through voluntary contributions, which are subsidies coming in addition to the mandatory membership fees due by the various members of the association, which have consistently accounted for a negligible proportion of its resources. Since 2010, the APFTE has been concluding various agreements with Ryanair and its subsidiary Airport Marketing Services (AMS). Under those agreements, the APFTE purchases marketing services allegedly intended to promote the Montpellier area on Ryanair’s website. The agreements concluded between 2010 and 2016 involve obligations for Ryanair to provide air transport services to Montpellier from various European airports with specific flight frequencies. A new agreement, signed in 2017, does not contain such explicit obligations but targets the marketing services to the three regions where the airports served by Ryanair from Montpellier are located. In exchange for the provision of marketing services under those agreements, Ryanair and AMS have received substantial payments from the APFTE since 2010.

The Commission has concluded on a preliminary basis that the agreements at issue are financed through State resources and imputable to the State. Indeed, it appears that the various public entities financing the APFTE through voluntary contributions grant the latter on the basis of precise plans presented by the APFTE as regards the use of its resources and make the payment of those contributions conditional upon them being effectively allocated to those uses. Through this mechanism, the various public entities concerned appear to exert tight control over the use of the funding they provide to the APFTE through voluntary contributions. As a result, it can be concluded on a preliminary basis that those contributions, which make up for almost the entirety of the APFTE’s resources, constitute State resources up to the point when they are transferred by the APFTE to Ryanair and AMS under the agreements at issue.

Moreover, the Commission considers at this stage that the marketing agreements confer an economic advantage on Ryanair (Ryanair and its 100 % subsidiary AMS being considered for the purposes of this preliminary assessment as a single company), by lowering the costs that it would normally have to bear in order to fly from and to Montpellier. France claims that the APFTE intervenes as a purchaser of public services, competent in the field of tourism and economic development of the region.

While, on the face of it, the agreements at issue consist for the APFTE in purchasing marketing services, several elements indicate that the real objective and effect of those agreements is the financial support of Ryanair’s air transport services from/to Montpellier airport with the aim to incentivise Ryanair to expand or at least not to downsize its operations at that airport. While this is a practice that the Commission has already observed at the level of public entities in charge of the economic development of a region, such practices appear alien to the behaviour of a market economy operator led by considerations of profitability. As a result, the Commission doubts at this stage that the market economy operator principle is applicable to the agreements at issue. If this principle is not applicable, the payments made by the APFTE to Ryanair and AMS under the agreements ought to be seen as subsidies conferring an economic advantage on those companies.

In any event, even if the marketing economy operator principle is applicable, the Commission doubts that it is complied with. In this respect, the Commission notes first that the marketing agreements were signed by the APFTE, an entity different and independent from the company operating the Montpellier airport. Therefore, the airport charges and other revenues accruing to the airport as a result of Ryanair’s activity at that airport could not be considered as profits for the APFTE and hence the method of incremental profitability set out in the Commission’s 2014 Guidelines on State aid to airports and airlines (1) is not applicable. Consequently, the APFTE appears to support Ryanair’s air transport operations from/to Montpellier airport without any return that a prudent market economy operator guided by profitability prospects would take into consideration. Furthermore, even assuming that the real objective and effect of the agreements at issue from the APFTE’s perspective was to purchase marketing services, several elements suggest that those services would not be purchased at market prices, namely at prices minimising the costs incurred by the AFPTE. Since the market economy operator principle, assuming that it is applicable, appears not be complied with, the agreements appear to confer an economic advantage on Ryanair/AMS.

Since the measures at issue are bilateral agreements with an individual company, that economic advantage appears to be selective. The marketing contracts concluded directly with Ryanair/AMS without any tender are per se selective. Regarding the contracts signed following a public tender, the Commission holds on a preliminary basis that they have to be qualified as selective as well, since several elements indicate that the tenders were designed from the outset to enable the selection of Ryanair as the service provider. The selection criteria set out in the tender organised in 2013 did not focus on marketing services, but on the provision of air services to specific regions with minimum flight frequencies which corresponded exactly to the routes then operated by Ryanair from the Montpellier airport. As regards the tender organised in 2017, it specified that three regions were to be targeted by marketing services, these regions being the only ones served by direct flights operated by Ryanair from the Montpellier airport.

Since the measures affect the intra-EU air transport market, which is fully liberalised, they appear to distort competition and affect trade between Member States.

As a result, the agreements, which were put into effect without prior notification to the Commission, appear to constitute unlawful State aid within the meaning of Article 107(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). France has so far not invoked any grounds on the basis of which the measures could be found compatible with the internal market in case they would constitute State aid. At this stage, the Commission considers that the only possible compatibility basis for those measures would be Article 107(3)(c) of the TFEU as interpreted by the provisions of the Commission’s 2014 and 2005 (2) Guidelines on State aid to airports and airlines as well as the general principles underpinning the compatibility of start-up aid to airlines. However, at this stage, the measures at issue appear not to fully comply with those provisions. As a result, the Commission doubts that they can be considered compatible with the internal market.

TEXT OF LETTER

(1)  Communication from the Commission — Guidelines on State aid to airports and airlines (OJ C 99, 4.4.2014, p. 3).

(2)  Communication from the Commission — Community guidelines on financing of airports and start-up aid to airlines departing from regional airports (OJ C 312, 9.12.2005, p. 1).

(3)  Cette plainte se présente comme un complément à une plainte précédente déposée le 27 novembre 2009 (affaire SA.30328 (2010/CP)).

(*1)  L'élément en question est couvert par le secret professionnel au sens de la communication C(2003) 4582 de la Commission du 1er décembre 2003 sur le secret professionnel dans les décisions en matière d'aides d'État (JO C 297 du 9.12.2003, p. 6).

(4)  Passagers ayant commencé ou terminé leur voyage à l'aéroport de Montpellier.

(5)  Air Algérie, Air Arabia, Air France, Aer Lingus, Alitalia, ASL Airlines, Chalair Aviation, EasyJet, Germanwings, Hop!, KLM, Lufthansa, Norwegian, Royal Air Maroc, SAS Scandinavian Airlines, Transavia, Volotea (source: https://www.montpellier.aeroport.fr/vols-destinations/compagnies-aeriennes-montpellier/, visité le 8 mars 2018)

(6)  http://www.montpellier.aeroport.fr/fr/societe-aeroport/carte-d-identite.

(7)  L'APFTE est régie par la loi du 1er juillet 1901 relative au contrat d'association et par son décret d'application du 16 août 1901.

(8)  Article 3 des statuts.

(9)  Voir aussi considérant 53 et suivants.

(10)  Clause 1.3 du contrat.

(11)  Clause 5.3 du contrat.

(12)  Avenant No 1 conclu le 20 avril 2011

(13)  Avenant du 25 février 2013.

(14)  Communication de la Commission — Lignes directrices sur les aides d’État aux aéroports et aux compagnies aériennes (JO C 99, 04.04.2014, p. 3).

(15)  CJCE, 22 mars 1977, aff. 78/76, Steinike, ECLI:EU:C:1977:52, point 21 et suivants.

(16)  TPICE, 25 mars 1999, aff. T-37/97, Forges de Clabecq SA c/ Commission, ECLI:EU:T:1999:66, point 69.

(17)  Article 3 des statuts de l'APFTE.

(18)  Voir par exemple les délibérations no 10397 (29 septembre 2011) et no 11796 (25 juillet 2013) de la Communauté d'Agglomération de Montpellier.

(19)  Voir Chambre régionale des comptes de Languedoc-Roussillon, Rapport d’observations définitives no 136/453 du 17 avril 2013, page 96. Ce rapport peut être consulté sur https://www.ccomptes.fr/sites/default/files/EzPublish/LRR201303-internet.pdf.

(20)  Voir Chambre régionale des comptes de Languedoc-Roussillon, Midi-Pyrénées, Rapport d’observations définitives sur la gestion de la communauté d'agglomération de Montpellier, no GR/16/1733 du 13 octobre 2016, page 82. Ce rapport peut être consulté sur https://www.ccomptes.fr/sites/default/files/EzPublish/LRMPR201626_2.pdf.

(21)  JO L 248, 24.9.2015, p. 9.

(22)  Voir Décision de la Commission du 23 Juillet 2014 concernant l'aide SA.33961 (2012/C) (ex 2012/NN) mise à exécution par la France en faveur de la chambre de commerce et d’industrie de Nîmes — Uzès — Le Vigan, de Veolia Transport Aéroport de Nîmes, de Ryanair et d'Airport Marketing Services (JO L 113, 27.4.2016, p. 32), points 314-315.

(23)  Article 1 et 5.3 du contrat de 2010.

(24)  La Commission emploiera donc «Ryanair» dans la suite de l'évaluation pour dénoter le bénéficiaire des mesures en cause.

(25)  Voir notamment arrêt de la Cour du 29 avril 1999, Espagne c/ Commission, ECLI:EU:C:1999:210, Rec. I-2459, point 41.

(26)  Les entités publiques finançant l'APFTE sont également actionnaires minoritaires d'AMM et bénéficient ainsi indirectement des bénéfices qu'elle génère. Cependant, du point de vue de leur rentabilité, les actionnaires minoritaires d'AMM n'auraient pas intérêt à financer des mesures destinées à accroître le trafic à l'aéroport de Montpellier, en espérant en tirer des dividendes supplémentaires ou une plus-value du capital investi, sans cofinancement de l'actionnaire majoritaire ou d'AMM elle-même, et sans acquérir d'actions supplémentaires dans cette société.

(27)  Voir section 3.5 des lignes directrices de 2014.

(28)  Voir considérants 45 et 46.

(29)  Voir considérants 31, 36 et 37.

(30)  Voir le considérant 41, notamment: «(d)ans tous les cas, les sociétés (devaient) assurer un lien vers le site internet de l'APFTE (go to Montpellier) sur leur site internet».

(31)  Voir considérant 83 de la Communication de la Commission relative à la notion d'«aide d'État» visée à l'article 107, paragraphe 1, du traité sur le fonctionnement de l'Union européenne (C/2016/2946) (JO C 262, 19.07.2016, p. 1–50) et l'arrêt du Tribunal du 28 janvier 1999, BAI c/ Commission, T-14/96, ECLI:EU:T:1999:12, points 74 à 79.

(32)  Voir considérant 70.

(33)  JO L 248, 24.9.2015, p. 9.

(34)  Arrêt du Tribunal général du 30 avril 1998, affaire T-214/95, Het Vlaamse Gewest (Région flamande) c/ Commission des Communautés européennes, ECLI:EU:T:1998:77.

(35)  Voir points 71 à 75, et 79 (b) et (c) des lignes directrices de 2005, et points 139, 140, 141, 151 des lignes directrices de 2014.

(36)  Voir point 79 (b), (d) et (i) des lignes directrices de 2005, et point 147 des lignes directrices de 2014.

(37)  Voir point 79 (g), (h) et 80 des lignes directrices de 2005, et points 101, 150, 152 et 153 des lignes directrices de 2014.

(38)  JO C 297, 09.12.2003, p. 6.