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The arrogant way Lufthansa behaves when it comes to the state bailout of his daughters makes things look black for the domestic market after the pandemic.
Whoever has the gold sets the rules: With this axiom, the industrialist Frank Stronach reminded him years ago that it is much easier in the hard and cold economic world to get out of the way if he can jump the small change. If one considers Lufthansa’s current behavior on the question of under what circumstances the states of Belgium, Austria and Switzerland should take over the wings of Lufthansa subsidiaries AUA, Brussels Airlines and Swiss with a total of € 1 billion, the impression emerges that German fleet captains would have a different understanding of the legitimization of standardization: we don’t have gold, but we still want to set the rules.
How else should the German group’s demands on the three countries be understood? Millions of three digits in each case to maintain flight operations – just bring it, dalli, dallli! But don’t put any conditions, dear politicians. Minority interests? Location promise? Job guarantees? Ridiculous! The Lufthansa team is particularly bold with the Belgian government. For years, Brussels Airlines deliberately only pushed old planes, thus reducing the quality of their service, now they want to use the expected government aid loans to pay intragroup rental rates for former vultures. Balance polishing in Cologne at the expense of the Belgian taxpayer: you must dare to do it. Especially since Brussels is still quite upset by Lufthansa’s plans to downgrade Brussels Airlines to a low-cost airline.
If this approach is an indication of the ways in which competition takes place in the EU after the pandemic, then this is not a good prospect for the internal market. Because German corporations now benefit enormously from the fact that their government can never issue state aid without problems; The EU state aid law is de facto suspended, even if Austrian Finance Minister Gernot Blümel may not believe it. There is nothing wrong with that or even illegitimate. But if this competitive advantage means that the Germans go shopping and incorporate the weakened fillets of industry from northern Italy or Spain at discount prices, there will be a storm of nationalist outrage in these countries. That is exactly what the Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, is not the only one to warn of when speaking of “great effects on a level playing field” due to unequal state aid in individual Member States.
This development threatens to overwhelm those politicians who have nothing to do with the internal market, EU law and the common rules of the game, and certainly not for German corporate captains who wish to dictate, in accordance with the colonial rule, how the natives must submit to his will.
