This article examines the effects that EU state aid rules impose on the airline sectors of small peripheral Member States. By the same token, it looks at the Central and Eastern European airline sectors and examines the rationale behind the practice of states to keep alive their loss-making flag carriers. The article compares the vicissitudes of the Baltic flag carriers, Estonian Air and airBaltic . It is suggested that, behind the apparently irrational behavior, there could be found a rationale, namely the wish to offer connectivity above market level, and, with regard to poorer peripheral Member States, beyond market quality. This in turn is attributable to the wider external benefits to the domestic economy that air services bring but which cannot be internalized by the airlines. Therefore, in particular in the context of the asymmetrical integration model, which is on the rise in the EU , state aid rules are discovered to amplify the differences between the center and the periphery.

中文翻译：

---

欧洲监管领域的奇特之处：波罗的海国家的外围旗船和欧盟竞争法

本文考察了欧盟国家援助规则对外围小成员国的航空业的影响。出于同样的原因，它着眼于中欧和东欧的航空业，并研究了各国保持亏损的旗舰航空公司的做法背后的基本原理。文章比较了波罗的海旗舰航空公司爱沙尼亚航空公司和波罗的海航空公司的变迁。有人认为，在明显不合理的行为背后，可能有一个理由，即希望提供高于市场水平的连通性，而对于较贫穷的外围成员国，则超越市场质量。这反过来又归因于航空服务为国内经济带来的更广泛的外部利益，但航空公司无法将其内部化。所以，