The Court of Justice of the European Union maintains the annulment of the Commission's approval for the 6 billion euro recapitalization of Lufthansa.

The Court of Justice of the European Union rejected Lufthansa's appeal and upheld the annulment of the European Commission's decision that approved the 6 billion euro recapitalization granted to the German company during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the ruling pronounced on April 23, 2026, the CJEU confirms that one of the errors previously noted by the Court, related to the way the Commission accepted the establishment of the conversion price of a component of the aid into capital, was sufficient to justify the annulment of the approval. In short The CJEU rejected Lufthansa's appeal and upheld the annulment of the Commission's approval for the 6 billion euro German recapitalization.

The Court confirmed that the Tribunal was right to find that the Commission violated the Temporary Framework regarding the conversion price of Silent Participation II into capital.

At the same time, the CJEU decided that the Tribunal was wrong on several other points and examined the Commission's decision too strictly.

The ruling reaffirms that, in complex economic contexts, the Commission enjoys a wide margin of discretion in state aid matters.

The Lufthansa recapitalization was notified by Germany in June 2020 and approved without opening a formal investigation procedure. The case originated in the summer of 2020, when Germany notified the Commission of an individual aid measure for Deutsche Lufthansa AG, consisting of a 6 billion euro recapitalization. The measure was part of a broader support package for the Lufthansa group and aimed to restore the balance sheet position and liquidity of the companies in the group in the exceptional context created by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Court's presentation, the recapitalization consisted of three elements: a capital participation of approximately 300 million euros, a non-convertible silent participation in shares of approximately 4.7 billion euros, called Silent Participation I, and a silent participation of 1 billion euros with the characteristics of a convertible debt instrument, called Silent Participation II. The Commission then approved the aid without opening a formal investigation procedure, considering that it was compatible with the internal market based on Article 107(3)(b) TFEU and the temporary framework on state aid adopted in the context of the pandemic. Ryanair and Condor challenged this approval, and the Court of the European Union ruled in their favor in a decision on May 10, 2023, annulling the Commission's decision. Lufthansa subsequently challenged the Tribunal's ruling before the Court of Justice. In its current ruling, the CJEU confirms the legal core that led to the annulment of the approval. The Court states that the Tribunal acted correctly when it found that the European Executive violated the Temporary Framework by accepting the methods used to determine the conversion price of shares at the time of the conversion of Silent Participation II into capital. The Court specifies that each of the errors noted by the Tribunal and considered self-standing, if established, can autonomously justify the annulment of a Commission decision. On this basis, the CJEU maintains the annulment. However, the verdict does not fully confirm the Tribunal's reasoning. The Court of Justice explicitly states that the lower court erred on several other points. According to the CJEU, the Tribunal was wrong when it assessed that the European Executive had made errors by concluding that Lufthansa could not obtain market financing on accessible terms, by not requesting a mechanism to encourage the faster buyback of the German participation, by rejecting the idea that Lufthansa held significant market power at certain airports, by considering certain competitive commitments insufficient, and by noting an alleged violation of the obligation to provide reasoning. This part of the ruling is important beyond the Lufthansa case. The Court states that the Tribunal conducted, in several respects, an excessively strict examination of the Commission's decision and thus entered the area of economic assessment reserved for the European Executive. The CJEU emphasizes that, in complex economic contexts, the Commission must necessarily benefit from a wide margin of discretion, and the court's review must be limited to verifying the existence of a manifest error of assessment, without substituting the Commission's evaluation with its own assessment. From a journalistic and legal perspective, this combination of conclusions makes the verdict particularly interesting. On one hand, Lufthansa definitively loses at this stage, and the annulment of the Commission's approval remains in place. On the other hand, the Court does not validate a maximalist reading against the Commission and does not transform the Tribunal's ruling into a precedent for extensive judicial review over every element of economic assessment in state aid matters. The ruling maintains the legal sanction for the decisive error but simultaneously draws a more protective line regarding the Commission's margin of discretion. In this logic, the case has broader significance for state aid cases approved during the pandemic. The Court confirms that even in a crisis moment, when European institutions act quickly to stabilize sectors affected by exceptional shocks, the conditions of the Temporary Framework must be strictly adhered to. But it simultaneously states that courts cannot transform judicial review into a comprehensive reassessment of economic choices that primarily belong to the Commission. For Lufthansa, the immediate implication is that the Tribunal's ruling remains in effect, and the Commission's decision from 2020, later rectified in 2021, remains annulled. For the Commission, the verdict is more ambivalent. The institution loses the case on the point that was deemed sufficient for annulment but gains a favorable clarification regarding the standard of review applicable to its decisions in state aid matters in complex economic situations. The Lufthansa recapitalization has become one of the most visible state aid cases during the pandemic, both due to the size of the amount and its impact on competition in European air transport. The measure was part of a wide series of national and European interventions authorized under the temporary framework adopted to limit the economic effects of the health crisis. The CJEU ruling of April 23, 2026, shows that disputes related to these interventions do not end once the pandemic emergency subsides. They continue to produce relevant jurisprudence both for the conditions of compatibility of state aid and for the delineation between judicial review and the economic assessment of the Commission.