Olympic will fight through the courts

The Commission has asked the Greek government to claim back 200m euros ($219m; �139m) from the carrier but so far it has failed to do so.

Athens has said it is willing to claim back 41m euros, granted to Olympic as part of an authorised aid scheme, but is under no obligation to claim back the rest.

The carrier says the money it received from the Greek Government should not be classified as aid.

Disputed

The deputy chief executive of Olympic Airways, Costas Mavrikis, told the BBC's World Business Report that his company would fight the action.

"The Greek State disputes that, we don't recognise that and we are going to exhaust all our legal means within the legal system," he said.

"State-owned airlines in Europe, they haven't received any state aid for a number of years now."

Even if the company wished to give the money back it probably wouldn't be able to raise the cash as the airline is virtually broke.

Olympic regularly suffers from strikes by workers protesting against planned privatisation, and so far attempts at selling the company off have failed.