The arrogant way in which Lufthansa behaves when it comes to the state rescue of its daughters makes things look black for the internal market in the aftermath of the pandemic.
Whoever has the gold makes the rules: with this axiom, industrialist Frank Stronach reminded years ago that it is much easier in the tough, cold economic world out there to get your own way if you can jump the small change. If one considers the current behavior of Lufthansa in the question of the circumstances under which the states of Belgium, Austria and Switzerland should undertake the wings of the Lufthansa subsidiaries AUA, Brussels Airlines and Swiss with a total of one billion euros, the impression arises that German fleet captains would have a different understanding of standardization legitimation: we have no gold, but we still want to make the rules.
How else should the German group’s demands on the three countries be understood? Three-digit millions in each case to maintain flight operations: just bring it on, dalli, dallli! But just don’t put any conditions on it, dear politicians. Minority interests? Promise of location? Employment guarantees? Ridiculous! Lufthansa are particularly bold towards the Belgian government. For years, Brussels Airlines deliberately only pushed old planes, thereby reducing their service quality, now they want to use the hoped-for government aid loans to repay the intra-group rental fees for the old vultures. Balance sheet polishing in Cologne at the expense of the Belgian taxpayer: you have to dare to do that. Especially since Brussels is still quite sniffed about Lufthansa’s plans to downgrade Brussels Airlines to a low-cost airline.
If this approach is an indication of the ways in which competition in the EU takes place in the aftermath of the pandemic, then this is not a good prospect for the internal market. Because German corporations are now profiting enormously from the fact that their government can never issue state aid without problems; EU state aid law is de facto suspended, even if Austria’s 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 on a shopping spree and incorporate the weakened fillets of northern Italian or Spanish industry at discount prices, there will be a storm of nationalistic indignation in these countries. That is exactly what Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is not the only one to warn of when she speaks of “great effects on the level playing field” due to the unequal state aid in the individual Member States.
This development threatens to wash over 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 want to dictate, according to the colonial rule, how the natives must submit to their will.
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