Proposal for a Council Decision on the signature, on behalf of the European Union, and provisional application of the Agreement on certain aspects of air services between the European Union and the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China

Following the judgements of the Court of Justice in the so-called "Open Skies" cases, on 5 June 2003 the Council granted the Commission a mandate to open negotiations with third countries on the replacement of certain provisions in existing agreements with an agreement at Union level (the "horizontal mandate"). The objectives of such agreements are to give all European Union air carriers non-discriminatory access to routes between the European Union and third countries, and to bring bilateral air service agreements between Member States and third countries in line with the law of the Union.

In accordance with the mechanisms and directives in the Annex to the "horizontal mandate", the Commission has negotiated an agreement with the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China that replaces certain provisions in the existing bilateral air services agreements between Member States and the Macao SAR with an agreement at Union level.

EUR-Lex: COM(2012)028: Follow the progress of this document through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2012:028:FIN

European Commission: COM(2012)29: Proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion of the Agreement on certain aspects of air services between the European Union and the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2012:0029:FIN:EN:PDF

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