The company Air Serbia in no way represents a fiscal risk for the state of Serbia or for the citizens, assessed the Minister of Finance Sinisa Mali and rejected the claims that the airline is subsidized “under the grain” from the state budget.
Stating that Air Serbia paid 82.1 million euros, into the state treasury by November 17 this year, Mali emphasized in the author’s text for today’s Politika that it was a “direct contribution” of the national airline to the republic budget.
“There are accusations that Air Serbia is subsidized under the grain, secretly, from the budget of Serbia. What the critics do not seem to know, or pretend not to know, is that every aid and payment, every dinar that would go from the budget to Air Serbia, subject to analysis and control due to state aid, because in that way competition between companies can be distorted,” the Minister of Finance wrote.
Mali points out that by signing the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with the European Union, Serbia has accepted the “rules of the game” which are “clearly prescribed and ultimately” controlled by the European Commission (EC).
He pointed out that the “consequences of old debts” from the period before the restructuring are still being felt, but that before the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Air Serbia “was not a company in difficulty”, and since the beginning of the pandemic it has made all its capacities available to the state and thousands of citizens.
Mali reminded that many countries decided to help airlines through subsidies, capital increases, loans, debt relief “within the new EC regulations for the purpose of supporting the economy in the conditions of the Covid 19 pandemic, which the Serbian government transferred to domestic legislation.”
“Like all other airlines in the world, Air Serbia needs help. All the conditions for providing state aid have been met,” Mali emphasized in the author’s text for today’s Politika.
