Air Serbia’s restructuring program will be adopted by the end of the year, Finance Minister Sinisa Mali said in the Serbian Parliament today.
“This program has been in the works for months, according to the examples of Air Baltic and others, bearing in mind that the state cannot help Air Serbia with a single dinar if a restructuring program is not adopted in accordance with EU state aid regulations,” Mali said.
Air Serbia operated positively until the crisis due to Covid-19, so that the state will help Air Serbia only when it comes to losses from the beginning of Covid, Mali emphasized, responding to the presentation of the president of the Fiscal Council, Pavle Petrovic.
Mali said at the parliamentary Finance Committee that the Fiscal Council is obsessed with Air Serbia because it mentioned that company 80 times in its report on the draft budget for 2021, although that company in no way represents a fiscal risk for the citizens and the state of Serbia.
He stated that a lot of untruths and lump sum assessments were presented regarding Air Serbia.
“When you look at the losses you are talking about, on December 31, 2013, that is the date when Air Serbia was created and when the negative capital of the company was 235.9 million euros, which was inherited from Jat Airways.”
Mali also points out that Air Serbia did not start from scratch, but from minus, and that then the profit made in the past six or seven was used to cover the negative initial capital.
“As of December 31, 2019, the negative capital of Sr. Serbia amounted to 129.5 million euros, so it is 106 million less than in 2013, so it is not true that losses are accumulating,” Mali pointed out.
He points out that Air Serbia’s restructuring program will be adopted by the end of the year and will then be sent to the state aid agency for approval, Dnevnik reports.
