After bankruptcy of Adria Airways, registered on September 30, 2019, Slovenia was left without a national airline. But the authorities at Ljubljana they want to revitalize the aviation sector and set up a new airline.
They have developed a plan based on EU funding (grant and reimbursable funds), to which is added the investment of the Slovenian government. However, in the first analysis, the European Union gave a negative opinion, noting that some planned investments are incompatible with EU guidelines.
In terms of amounts, the project provided for the allocation of € 76 million from the state budget, € 1,6 billion in EU grants and € 3,6 billion from EU reimbursable funds.
Slovenian Finance Minister Andrej Šircelj expressed hope this week. Slovenia will finalize and present the new plan to the EU. He mentioned that the state works to solve any problem.
For its part, the European Commission noted that it looks forward to further dialogue with the Slovenian authorities, with a view to establishing as best as possible how to use the funds to support economic recovery, in line with European Union priorities. Consequently, it is still uncertain whether a new national carrier will receive Brussels' approval.
According to estimates by Oxford Economics, Adria Airways has directly and indirectly supported over 25 jobs in the last year. Air navigation service providers had 000 employees. Another 2.000 people were at local related goods and services providers. Another 1000 employees were indirectly supported by increased local consumption. And the tourists, who arrived by Adria Airways planes, were still supporting 1000 jobs in the HoReCa sectors.