The European Commission (EC) has cleared Aegean Airlines to acquire Olympic Air. After conducting what it called an "in-depth investigation", the EC ruled that Olympic Air's financial difficulties would force its closure "in the near future" if it was not purchased by Aegean. The EC said that if Olympic went out of business, Aegean would be Greece's, "only significant domestic service provider...thus the merger causes no harm to competition that would not have occurred anyway". Aegean has long had an ambition to take over Olympic; the recent go-ahead for the purchase came two years after the EC blocked its previous attempt to acquire the flag carrier. The EC had originally highlighted that the airlines competed on 17 routes and it judged that a purchase would have a negative impact on competition.
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