70 LEGAL IMPACTS OF COVID-19 IN THE TOURISM INDUSTRY in COVID-19-related cases. For industries with tourism relevance, this legal basis was applied to authorise rescue and restructuring aid to two airlines155. Rescue and restructuring aid, approved by the Commission on the basis of Article 107(3)(c) and the Rescue and Restructuring Guidelines, is an exceptional aid category that can be used to save undertakings in difficulty. In the case of the two (Portuguese) airlines, TAP and SATA, the Commission authorised temporary rescue aid because the airlines (as opposed to airBaltic) had been in difficulty already before the pandemic, which excluded the application of the relevant aid categories of the Temporary Framework (which is only available to large companies if they were not in difficulty at the end of 2019). Nevertheless, the Commission approved rescue aid (a loan of 1.2 billion euros to TAP and a 133-million-euro-public-guarantee on a loan to SATA), for six months, on condition that the aid must be repaid or a restructuring plan must be submitted to the Commission before the expiry of that period. In both cases, the beneficiaries’ COVID-19 related issues were mentioned in (and thus factored in) the positive decision of the Commission. Although not COVID-19 relevant, for a full picture, it should be mentioned that in the case of SATA the Commission, while authorising the rescue aid, it also initiated a formal investigation into 2017, i.e. pre-pandemic, capital increases, suspecting that they might have involved State aid. 6.4. Aid approved under Article 107(2)(b) TFEU Article 107(2)(b) TFEU, as explained above, allows Member States to compensate the losses of businesses suffered as a result of the pandemic and the containment measures introduced in response. As the tourism industry has been widely marred by the pandemic and the administrative restrictions to fight it, this legal basis has been widely used to save businesses through aid granted to cover their losses. The examples below illustrate that Article 107(2)(b) aid gave an opportunity to Member States to help businesses subject to COVID-19 related administrative restrictions through various instruments as long as overcompensation would be avoided. 155 Commission decision C(2020) 5764 final of 18 August 2020 (SA.58101 (2020/N) Rescue aid to SATA Group) and Commission decision C(2020) 3989 final of 10 June 2020 (SA.57369 (2020/ N) Aid to TAP). In the case of SATA, the aid was partly authorised on the basis of Article 106(2) TFEU due to SATA’s SGEI mandate of connectivity services for the Azores.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTE4NzM5Nw==