TOURISM LAW AND COMPETITION – A PORTUGUESE PERSPECTIVE 421 During the COVID 19 crisis, the Portuguese authorities at the various levels of government have taken measures to tackle the impact of the standstill measures on the economy. In particular, the Portuguese government adopted (among others) lay-off measures, tax incentives, an exceptional regime for late rent payment in residential and non-residential lease agreements, as well as other type of agreements involving the occupancy of real estate properties, namely for commercial purposes. Instead of following other Member State’s approach by notifying umbrella state aid schemes, there have been successive notifications of aid to the Commission on the basis of the State budget and on the budgets of the Autonomous Regions (as well as on the basis of EU funds). It should be noted that the ultraperipheral nature of the Autonomous Regions of Azores and Madeira has resulted in an aggravated economic impact stemming from the COVID 19 crisis, not only considering the relevance of tourism but also their objective dependence on the air traffic for the regularity of supplies to the same territories. The Government has recognized the substantial impact of the COVID 19 crisis in the tourism sector in Portugal and approved several measures targeting at the same, such as creating instruments to promote Portugal as a safe destination, as well as taking recourse of the pre-existing State aid instruments to support especially impacted undertakings – a substantial part solely for the continental territory. It is not the object of the present contribution to analyse the impact and adequateness of such measures and efforts in the sector as a whole. Its assessment requires taking into consideration the specificities of each segment and objective differences notably as regards the type of sanitary restrictions applied to the same, as well as the time lag until full operationalization of the measures approved. In a simplistic manner, we may consider that this has ran in parallel with major efforts by players and associations representing them and resulted notably in new trends such as easing the impact of the COVID 19 constraints by also tapping into domestic demand but it is still premature to draw any conclusions. Similarly to what has occurred in many other Member States, the overwhelming impact of confinement measures and freedom of circulation between countries in the activity of air carriers has led the Portuguese State to provide aid toTransportes Aéreos Portugueses, SGPS, S.A. and to Azores regional air carrier group SATA, both under the Rescue and Restructuring Guidelines and for compensation of direct damage arising from the COVID 19 pandemics during limited periods of time. The restructuring of both airlines is being
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