Ryanair dreigt België te verlaten (en)

The Irish budget airline Ryanair has threatened to leave Belgium as a base if the EU rules that it received illegal state aid.

Ryanair's chief executive Michael O'Leary said: "We will just move... to other bases", according to the BBC, and it appears that the airline is already in negotiations with two other European airports.

The EU is currently examining the legality of subsidies to Ryanair from Belgian local government to use Charleroi airport, a small airport about 80km to the south of Brussels.

But according to The Telegraph, the airline said it had learned that the Commission's draft report found that "substantial parts" of the deal breached EU rules.

Dublin-based Ryanair has four aircraft based in Charleroi serving around 2 million passengers a year to 12 destinations.

Mr O'Leary said if the Commission decision went against Ryanair, as many as four million passengers could be affected, primarily in France and Spain, with little impact on Irish or British airports, the BBC reported.

Earlier this year, Ryanair suspended services to Strasbourg after a French court declared its deal with the local airport amounted to illegal state aid. This followed a complaint by Air France.