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Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr
Photo: BIZ-PHOTOS / action press
At the beginning of the corona crisis in spring 2020, the parliamentarians of the budget committee in the Bundestag had decided that state-backed companies were not allowed to pay bonuses to their management.
When Lufthansa fled under the government umbrella in the summer, one condition for the almost seven billion euros from Germany was not to grant any performance-related remuneration to the executive board.
In its subsidy requirements, the EU Commission finally stipulated that there should be no gratuities paid out of taxpayers' money.
But Lufthansa’s supervisory board has a heart for the executive floor of the flagship carrier's flagship carrier.
Its managers are not considered to be among the high earners among the executives of large German companies.
That may be one reason why the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Lufthansa continues to intend to pay out part of his bonuses to the Executive Board in the future.
A sensitive letter from the chairman of the supervisory board to the federal government
This emerges from correspondence between Chief Controller Karl-Ludwig Kley and the Federal Government.
The process is extremely delicate, precisely because the billions in federal aid within the framework of the Economic Stabilization Fund (WSF) actually exclude any variable remuneration during the term.
Nevertheless, the Supervisory Board put a draft resolution on the agenda on March 3.
In January, the Heidelberg law professor Dirk Verse came to the conclusion by means of a legal opinion on behalf of the supervisory board that the corporate management could assert its right to certain long-term performance remuneration granted before the state entered the market.
The federal government got wind of the planned supervisory board resolution and intervened two days before the meeting.
Kley then complained in a letter that the bonus discussion "takes up so much space and takes us time" to address other issues.
With regard to the remuneration components, he »does not share the view of the federal government«.
However, the board of directors waived any claims for 2020.
From Berlin's point of view, however, Kley has only postponed the topic to the coming year.
That would raise EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager against the airline.
In March, she complained to Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Peter Altmaier (CDU) in a conference call that Lufthansa was violating state aid requirements.
She criticized Lufthansa’s cancellation of the Condor feeder flights, which the Federal Cartel Office also banned a few days later.
EU Commissioner remains tough on the airline
In addition, by paying 25 million euros in interest on a hybrid bond, the airline disregarded the EU's conditions for entry into the state.
The Danish commissioner argues that the loan did not have to be serviced and that the airline's officials deliberately ignored this.
In another conference call this week, she demanded that Lufthansa should pay the sum to the federal government.
A company spokesman did not want to comment on either incident when asked by SPIEGEL.
Meanwhile, Lufthansa announced on Thursday that it would be asking shareholders to approve a capital increase for an impressive 5.5 billion euros at the upcoming Annual General Meeting in May.
The money is to flow primarily into the repayment of state aid.
The airline's management has only taken around three billion euros from the state aid funds, has so far waived further billions and instead taken out loans on the private capital market in recent months.
As a result, she was able to redeem a government KfW loan in the amount of one billion euros early.