Brussels (dpa) - The European Commission opened an investigation on Monday into France's regional Beziers airport on suspicion that its operators had breached EU competition rules.
Beziers airport, in the southern French region of Occitane, served more than 250,000 passengers last year, according to the commission.
The airport operations changed hands in 2011 from the local chamber of commerce to a syndicate composed of local and regional public authorities.
The commission - which acts as the European Union's competition watchdog - received a complaint about public funds granted to the successive operators from 2007 until now, as well as deals they struck with Ryanair.
The operational aid may have granted Beziers airport an unfair competitive benefit, while the agreements with Ryanair may have given it "an undue economic advantage vis-a-vis its competitors that might amount to incompatible aid," the commission wrote.
The EU executive has investigated several funding arrangements aimed at keeping airlines operating at certain regional airports, cracking down in recent years on schemes in France, Germany, Austria and Italy.
In 2018, meanwhile, French authorities impounded a Ryanair plane to recoup state aid to the airline that Brussels had found to be illegal.
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