by Kassandra On 9 October 2013, Commissioner Almunia accepted the take over of Olympic Airways by the other Greek airline company, Aegean. Today, the decision is not yet published (http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/case_details.cfm?proc_code=...). Passengers were faced with price increases after the merger, but are still unable to check whether these price hikes were in line with the possible commitments made by Aegean to DG Competition. Such late publication of Commission decisions is very unusual. Normally, decisions are published within a few months once the companies concerned have agreed with the Commission which business sensitive data should be blanked out from the final, public wording. Even if the translation process in all languages takes time, usually the Commission can publish the original language documents. However, this has legal implications. The deadline for interested parties, like the passengers who faced the price hikes, to challenge the Commission decision starts with the publication of the public decision. However, the more time passes, the least probable it is for passengers to obtain any results from a challenge of the decision. An appeal to the EU General Court in Luxembourg lasts more than a year. In the meantime Aegean will be able reorganize its services and pricing. A possible eventual judgement of the Court in favour of passengers could therefore be without effect. The question is therefore whether by delaying the publication of the final decision for such an unreasonable time, the Commission is not breaching the right of the passengers to have the decision reviewed by the Court. In addition, the lateness in publication does not seem in line with the standard of good administration that the EU should comply with and the EU ombudsman should investigate whether there was no maladministration in this case.
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