Ryanair is blackmailing the right to strike

(B2) Ryanair has announced that it is suspending reservations at Charleroi airport (Belgium) as of November 12 in order to obtain a guaranteed strike-free airport. “Ryanair is determined to operate its flights only if the company receives assurances that a possible strike will no longer be able to block this international airport. his press release published on the internet. The Irish company had seen its flight plan disturbed by a strike of several days last June of the personnel of the airport, strike which under its pressure the airport had not succeeded in breaking in spite of the call for personnel from other companies.

This is not blackmail against the right to strike, says the Commission
A situation which hardly moves the European Commission which challenged, Thursday, August 23, the term of blackmail. “To our knowledge, the company did not blackmail the strike,” explains one of the Commission's spokespersons. "She just asked that the service not be disturbed. (...) It is a question to be settled between companies" (Editor's note: Charleroi airport and Ryanair). Refusing to confirm that the right to strike is a fundamental right, the spokesperson gets away with a generality. "It is not for the Commission to comment on this point."

Ryanair, however, is not known to be a social model
Examples:
- the company circumvents Belgian social law and applies Irish law (CSC file)
- deplorable working conditions (file of Amnesty international Belgium)
- violated trade union rights (Ryanair employee website)
- reactions in Sweden (reported by Air South)
...
End of flights = end of aid for Ryanair?
La Wallonia and the unions do not, however, lack arguments in the matter. Ryanair will have to - if it maintains its position - at least give up some aid already received. A contract binds Charleroi airport, the Walloon authorities and Ryanair for a period of 15 years for a set of advantages, partially endorsed in 2004 by the European Commission. This provides in its decision that "start-up aid for new routes must be accompanied by a mechanism providing for penalties in the event of non-performance by Ryanair of its contractual obligations. In the event of breach of the contract before its expiry , it is up to the Walloon Region to request the application of the clause and therefore damages from Ryanair ", we believe at the Commission. A serious brake on the statements, a little abrupt, of Ryanair.

Not to mention the painful reimbursement of illegal aid.
If the region has forgotten to mention this contractual liability clause in the contract, the Commission could "take it into account to calculate with Belgium the total and final amount of aid to be recovered", estimates a European official. Indeed, the airline must still reimburse the part of the aid declared illegal by the Commission (Ryanair has still not reimbursed this part, preferring record, pending a judgment of the European Court of First Instance, which she hopes will prove her right). A rather optimistic vision, however, because the European and Walloon executives would need enough political courage to recalculate the aid to be reimbursed.

Serious European defect
In general, however, there is a defect in the European "armor" in terms of public aid and competition. Nothing is provided for the reimbursement of aid already received (paid by local or national authorities), for the period already elapsed, in the event of a company failing to meet its commitments in terms of economic development and employment. . Which is, in a way, a case of unfair competition. Nothing is thus mentioned directly in the European guidelines dating from 2005 on aid to regional airports (used extensively by Ryanair, a real money pump for regional subsidies). Several precedents have already been called into question. But abroad, the Commission, although generally quick to sanction differences in competition, has remained foreign inactive on this point, and to be honest the accomplice of "rogue companies". In this little game "I pocket the aid and I get out", the company is already known as the white wolf (see Clermont-Ferrand in 2004)

(NGV)