Abstract
The court cases over contracts with Ryanair seem to imply that there is a contradiction between the wishes of local government authorities to purchase infrastructural services which improve the local business environment and European competition laws. The following article examines whether the financial support Ryanair receives should in fact be considered unfair and illegal against the background of the more general problem of reduced-price access to public facilities for private business.
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References
See J. A. Schumpeter: Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, New York 1942, third edition (1950), pp. 67–68.
Cf. Official Journal of the European Communities C 18/3, 25.01.2003.
Ibid. Cf. Official Journal of the European Communities C 18/3, 25.01.2003.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 19.09.2003, p. 19.
European Commission, press release IP/02/1854, 11.12.2002.
Cf. OJ 18/3, op. cit. Cf. Official Journal of the European Communities C 18/3, 25.01.2003., p. 7: “Ryanair verbindt zich ertoe om gedurende een periode van 15 jaar ten minste twee, en ten hoogste vier vliegtuigen, te stationeren in Charlerol.
For more details see European Commission: press release IP/04/157, 03.02.2004.
For a similar problem in the German hospital market cf. Björn Kuchinke, Jens Schubert: Beihilfen und Krankenhäuser, in: Wirtschaft und Wettbewerb, 2002, No. 7/8, pp. 710–719.
Cf. Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie de Strasbourg et du Bas-Rhin, Communique, 26.08.2003.
Cf. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 19.09.2003, p. 19.
See Wolfgang Kilian: Wettbewerbsrecht, Munich 1996, p. 86; Thomas Oppermann: Europarecht, 2. ed., Munich 1999, margin number 1030.
Cf. Torsten Steinrücken, Sebastian Jaenichen: Wofür bezahlen Standorte? Subventionswirkungen im Wettbewerb der Regionen, in: List Forum für Wirtschafts- und Finanzpolitik, Vol. 4, Band 28, 2002, pp. 313–326.
Handelsblatt 22.10.2003, p. 14, our translation.
For the relationship between transportation costs and migration away from rural areas see E. Helpman: The size of regions, in: David Pines, Efraim Sadka, Itznak Zilcha (eds.): Topics in Public Economics, New York 1998, Cambridge University Press, pp. 33–54.
Cf. Edward M. Bergman, Daoshan Sun: Infrastructure and Manufacturing Productivity: Regional Accessibility and Development Level Effects, in: D. F. Batten, C. Karlson (eds.): Infrastructure and the Complexity of Economic Development, Berlin 1996.
Cf. Torsten Steinrücken, Sebastian Jaenichen: Heterogene Standortqualitäten und Signalstrategien: Ansiedlungsprämien, Werbung und kommunale Leuchtturmpolitik, in: Zeitschrift für Wirtschftspolitik, 2003, No. 3.
On this problem cf. Werner W. Pommerehne: Präferenzen für öffentliche Güter: Ansätze zu ihrer Erfassung, Tübingen 1987.
Arthur C. Pigout The Economics of Welfare, London 1929, p. 174.
See European Court of Justice: C-280/00 Altmark Trans GmbH v Regierungspräsidium Magdeburg, 24.7.2003, quoted in: Wirtschaft und Wettbewerb, 2003, No. 9, pp. 993–1004.
Soltèsz argues in a different way. Cf. Ulrich Soltèsz: “Billigflieger” im Konflikt mit dem Gemeinschaftsrecht?, in: Wirtschaft und Wettbewerb, 2003, No. 10, p. 1039.
Cf. European Commission: press release IP/04/157, 03.02.2004, op. cit.
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The authors wish to thank Eve Hayes for helpful comments.
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Steinrücken, T., Jaenichen, S. Towards the conformity of infrastructure policy with European laws. Intereconomics 39, 97–102 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03032103
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03032103