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| - An EU court on Wednesday said the European Commission failed to make its case when approving the bailouts of KLM and Portugal's TAP, handing a rare victory to low cost carrier Ryanair. The bloc's Luxembourg-based General Court ordered the EU regulator to redo its paperwork, and offer clearer arguments on why it believes the bailouts conform with competition law. The separately handled cases were part of a legal onslaught across Europe by the Irish low-cost carrier to stop pandemic-linked bailout deals for the bloc's legacy airlines. The court "annuls the Commission's decision to approve the Netherlands financial aid for the airline KLM amid the COVID-19 pandemic on the grounds of inadequate reasoning", a statement said. "However, the effects of the annulment (including recovery of the aid) are suspended pending a new decision" by the commission, it added, meaning the airlines are not on the hook to pay back the subsidies for now. The TAP decision involved a low cost loan from the Portuguese government of 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion), while KLM received a loan and state guarantees worth 3.4 billion euros, the court said. The commission, which has lost several court battles recently over competition cases, said it will "carefully study" the judgement and "reflect on possible next steps", which include the chance to appeal. Separately, Ryanair lost a challenge to a 10 billion-euro rescue fund in Spain for local carriers. "For the moment, there are no consequences for us," Prime Minister Antonio Costa told Portuguese media and said that the rescue of TAP was still underway. "From what I understand it is a preliminary decision," he added, and that the commission will be working to solve the problems. Ryanair has long railed against the support given to national champions, and is often backed by the European Commission which requests that companies make concessions -- such as giving up valuable flight slots in busy airports -- in return for state aid. But state aid rules have been considerably weakened to fight the pandemic, angering Ryanair that had until Wednesday lost all its cases in EU courts. "Today's rulings in two of more than 20 appeals filed to date before the General Court are an important victory for consumers and competition," a company spokesperson said. Ryanair -- Europe's biggest airline in terms of passenger numbers -- is also seeking to undo Germany's massive bailout of Lufthansa in the EU courts. Ryanair last month estimated the total state aid to airlines approved by Brussels since the beginning of the pandemic at more than 30 billion euros ($36 billion), including 11 billion to Lufthansa, 10.6 billion to Air France-KLM, 3.5 billion to Alitalia and 1.3 billion to SAS. Based in Ireland but hugely popular in the UK, Ryanair was able to get a £600-million (690-million-euro, $832-million) emergency loan from British public authorities in May last year. bur-arp/dc/yad
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