Romania’s government has discussed allocating critical financial support to ailing flag-carrier Tarom during a meeting on 16 January.
Transport minister Lucian Bode had asked prime minister Ludovic Orban to approve a draft memorandum for granting rescue aid, supplemented with restructuring aid, for 2020.
After the meeting the head of the prime minister’s chancellery, Ionel Danca, gave a briefing during which he stated that the rescue aid will amount to 195 million lei ($45 million).
Danca says that, in the absence of the funding, “it would be impossible [for Tarom] to finance current activity” from March.
Orban indicates that discussions have already been conducted at European Commission level, with new vice-president Margrethe Vestager, who was formerly the competition commissioner under Jean-Claude Juncker’s presidency.
Transport minister Bode had already warned that the airline was facing a crisis, telling a television station in December that it was likely to lose 190 million lei for 2019, and that it was looking for €47 million ($52 million) in rescue aid as part of a €110 million restructuring package.
