Member of the SDP Rasko Konjević he asked the President of the Council of the Agency for the Protection of Competition Miodrag Vujović to provide him with information on whether the agency controlled the allocation of money to the national airline Montenegro Airlines (MA) during this year, as well as whether the rules and policies of the allocation of state aid defined by the European Union are respected when it comes to that company.
Since this year, the control of the allocation of state aid has been entrusted to the Agency for the Protection of Competition. In the annual report on the state aid granted for 2017, which arrived six months late in the parliamentary procedure, there is no information about the national airline.
During 2017, the government allocated EUR 9,7 million to MA through three transactions, which was acknowledged by the Minister of Finance Darko Radunović at the session of the Committee for Economy, Budget and Finance in mid-November. The minister then said that they did not fully respect the law in their desire to try to save the national airline. He said that they gave them that money in the expectation that the company would return it. President of the Senate of the SAI Milan Dabović at the session, he said that the government has no right to give loans, and that the two transactions of 2,2 and 4,2 million were state aid.
"Whether the Agency carried out prior or subsequent control, in accordance with Article 19, bearing in mind that during 2018, according to the public statements of the Ministry of Finance and Transport, the state helped the company MA. During the discussion on the budget proposal for 2019, it was announced that the budget provides for aid for that company in the Ministry of Transport consumer unit. Bearing in mind the provisions of the law that regulates the field of state aid and competition protection, as well as the competences of the agency, and especially the rules and principles of the application of the state aid policy defined by the EU rules, please provide me with information as soon as possible whether the laws that regulate this topic are being followed in allocation of budget funds to the MA company," Konjević wrote in the letter.
MA was a beneficiary of state aid in 2012 and is no longer allowed to use it, as the European Commission warned in the report at the time. Minister of Transport Osman Nurkovic said last week that there are three scenarios for that company, which the Government must decide on by the New Year. Those options are the company remaining in state ownership with business rehabilitation and debt assumption, privatization or bankruptcy.
"In all three cases, the state will have significant costs. Even in the case of privatization, the partner wants a clean company without debts, which will have to be taken over by the state. If there is a bankruptcy, we will also have significant direct financial damages plus workers will lose their jobs, we will lose some flights and we will have less passenger service. The deterioration of the situation in the company was influenced by the fact that the rehabilitation plan from 2011 was not completed," said Nurković.
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