Ryanair Cheat Spanish Social Security Contributions

 

A report in Spanish daily 'Preferente' has criticised Ryanair for flounting Spanish Social Security regulations.

On their website for Spanish Tourism Professionals, they note that international businesses with operations in Spain such Coca-Cola, Ford Motors and Barclays Bank all willingly submit to Spanish law. Due to the fact that they employ Spanish staff, and are based in Spain these companies all operate under a Spanish subsidiary company and submit to Spanish corporate law.

But apparently not Ryanair. The budget airline maintains that because it's aircraft are registered in Ireland it should be subject to Irish corporate law, which favours the airline much more than Spanish law would.

Even though many of their cabin crew and pilots are Spanish and are based at airports in Spain, their contracts remain subject to Irish law and as such taxes are paid into the Irish Social Security System.

In this respect many regional governments of Spain are losing money twice over to Ryanair : Firstly in the escalating subsidies paid to the airline ( Where it was recently reported that Ryanair have been paid €100 million in subsidies in the last 5 years ), and secondly by their Spain-based employees placing a burden on the Regions public services through non-contribution into the system.