STATE AIDS TO AIRLINES DUE TO COVID-19 AND RYANAIR’S ACTIONS 711 incompatible with the internal market, the State “shall not put its proposed measures into effect until this procedure has resulted in a final decision”. Nevertheless, two phases must be distinguished in the assessment of a planned State aid project: a) the preliminary examination phase, set out in article 180(3), which allows the Commission to form an initial opinion on the compatibility of the aid in question; and b) the formal investigation procedure, provided for in article 108(2), which allows the Commission to be fully informed of the details of the case. Only in this second phase is there an obligation for the Commission to notify the interested parties to submit their observations. Therefore, when the formal investigation procedure is not initiated, the interested parties – in this case, Ryanair – are denied the opportunity to submit their comments. However, the European legislator has countered this situation by establishing the right to challenge the Commission’s decision not to open the formal investigation procedure before the European Union Courts. 4. STATE AID TO AIRLINES RELATED TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC Concerning COVID-19, in the first cases in which the Commission agreed to aid granted to national companies by their Member States, Ryanair appealed. However, the European Court rejected Ryanair’s arguments. 4.1. France: airport taxes On 24 March 2020, France notified the Commission of an aid measure in the form of a moratorium on the payment of the civil aviation tax and the solidarity levy on airline tickets (the so-called taxe Chirac), covering the period from March to December 2020. This moratorium, benefiting airlines with a French licence, mainly Air France, consisted in postponing until 1 January 2021 payment of taxes – an amount determined according to the number of carried passengers and the number of flights made from a French airport – and subsequently distributing payments over a period of 24 months (until 31 December 2022).
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