Rome 3 July 2024 - The go-ahead has been given for Lufthansa to complete its acquisition of a stake in ITA Airways. The formal decision by the EU Commission arrived today that will allow the transaction to be finalised, which after 40 years gives “a definitive answer to an issue that has occupied a large part of the country's political and economic debate,” said Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti at today's press conference at the Ministry of Economy and Finance attended by Ita Airways chairman Antonino Turicchi and Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr. "Today we close a historic and age-old problem. We can tell the Italians that we will no longer put one more euro of their taxes into it,” the minister says. “Ita was created precisely to put an end to the State aid” granted to Alitalia in the past and which has cost Italians their tax money.
“A great pride and a great success,” Giorgetti called it. "Ita will initially remain a State holding and will remain Italian at heart if not in ownership, because in any case it is also in the interest of substance to develop the Italian market, tourism and also the Italian economy, which will be interconnected with the world certainly better than it is today: it is a win-win operation.”
Ita's numbers mean that the union with Lufthansa will be “a long-term marriage,” said Ita Airways president Turicchi, explaining that the company with more than 400 million in cash on hand “has all the prerequisites to continue investing and growing.”
Thanks to this operation “Italian passengers win because they will have better connections and the market will be more competitive,” stressed Lufthansa CEO Spohr.
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