That Was The Week That Was 17-21 May 2021
Start Making Sense!
Talking Heads made sure that the expression ‘stop making sense’ will forever be associated with a great sound track and indeed a great concert movie (Girlfriend is better which includes the line ‘As we get older and stop making sense’ is at 1:05.00). But there is an opening now for the European Court of Justice to put the band back together and get on the road again with a tour called ‘Start Making Sense’. It would be a barn burner.
It was only last week when the ECJ handed down a ruling that Commission decisions were appealable if they failed to make sense. It turns out that was the firing of a starting pistol you heard, not the 1812 Overture. Within a week – this week, the week that was – their Honours handed down two decisions that sent back to the Commission state aid determinations that frankly, made no sense whatsoever. Ryanair appealed decisions to give Air France and TAP Portugal €4.6 billion (yes, billion) – AF/KLM trousered 3.4 of that, TAP a mere 1.2 – on the grounds that the aid decisions were reserved for airlines incorporated in their own country; clearly discriminating against other airlines equally supporting that country’s economy, providing jobs for that country and maintaining connectivity for that country in these difficult times.
The ECJ annulled the decisions to grant state aid to TAP and to AF/KLM on the grounds that there was ‘inadequate statement of reasons’. No, really. No kidding. ‘Inadequate’ is a very polite word here. The Commission had taken a very Boomtown Rat position on state aid: They can see no reasons/For there are no reasons/What reasons do you need to be shown?’ The ECJ decided to shoot it all down by suggesting that perhaps any sensible reason would be a good idea. They have not overturned the decision and demanded that the money be repaid. That would have led to any amount of obfuscation and faff. Instead, the ECJ has shown the world that just because they have to wear black robes to work and to live in Luxemburg they have no sense of humour. No indeed. Their decisions are masters of the comic arts. They have required the Commission to re-write and re-submit their decisions to justify this ridiculous, market distorting, economically illiterate series of decisions.
Order in popcorn. This is going to be fun.
The Commission will need to invoke Nadia Com?neci levels of mental and verbal gymnastics to make rational sense of decisions to help legacy carriers at the expense of a sensible, refreshed and built back better European aviation market. The real answer, laziness, is not all that rational. Nor is the reasoning that we want everything to go back to being identical to the way it was, only worse, because that will be proof that we have built it back better.
The better to which we are so assiduously striving to build back to includes the notice from Eurocontrol’s Network Manager this week that ATM capacity constraints can be expected over the summer (on currently assumed traffic – scrambling as states are to build any sort of summer season) in parts of France, Greece and Portugal. Of the three words in the trite mantra of building back better, only back can be said to apply.
If there is a problem with the ECJ determination that Commission decisions have to make sense it is that it does not go far enough. All decisions (certainly those involving public money) should make sense. Try to make sense of the reasoning behind there being capacity constraints this year.