The Greek government welcomes a European Commission’s decision to endorse a revised plan to sell the national flag carrier, Development Minister Kostis Hatzidakis said on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters, the Greek minister said an effort to privatize Olympic Airlines has become the most difficult, post-war, task and stressed that "today’s decision by the European Commission showed that this effort was based on very strong foundations".

Hatzidakis said that an inter-ministerial privatization commission will meet on Wednesday or Thursday and that the agreement would be tabled to Parliament for ratification. He underlined that under the government plan, workers in Olympic Airlines and Olympic Airways Services were fully covered, either through early retirement plans or transfer to other public sector agencies and stressed that the new owners would seek to employ several of the national airline’s existing workers because of their expertise.

Hatzidakis said that negotiations over the sale of ground handling would continue, as agreed, until Friday. He said that the sale procedure of Olympic Airlines would not affect the airline’s operations and expressed his confidence that everything would move on smoothly.

In Brussels, EU Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani told reporters that a privatization procedure developed with transparency and stressed that cooperation with Greek authorities was impeccable. The Commissioner said that a new airline company would be fully private and smaller than the existing Olympic Airlines and stressed that the sale was agreed on market price. He expressed his confidence that "more opportunities would be given to other companies for greater participation in the Greek market".

The European Commission in a statement said "the revised privatization plan does not give rise to state aid concerns", while it added that the swift completion of the privatization would ensure smooth air traffic operations to remote islands in Greece.