Transatlantic aviation deal is set for take-off

Date: 26/06/03

EUROPEAN transport chief Loyola de Palacio met US Transport Secretary Norman Mineta yesterday (25 June) during the EU-US summit to discuss crafting a transatlantic aviation agreement between Brussels and Washington.

But the two sides will not get down to hammering out the details until this autumn. "We will start the negotiations by September," said de Palacio spokesman Gilles Gantelet.

The European Commission got the green light from EU transport ministers earlier this month to negotiate an "open skies" deal on behalf of all member states with Washington.

This followed a landmark European Court of Justice ruling last November, which found that existing bilateral open skies pacts between 11 member states and the US contravened EU law.

John Byerly, the State Department's chief negotiator on the issue, was in Brussels last week for preliminary talks with EU transport officials.

He said the US would prefer to clinch a pared-down deal this autumn, leaving more controversial issues for later.

"[We should] look at possibilities for an "early harvest" agreement with both sides deciding that negotiations would of course continue," he told reporters after meeting his counterparts at the Commission.

Byerly said the issues which would not require changes to US law would be the quickest to be agreed, causing Gantelet to state that the Commission welcomed such an approach as the most logical way to move forward.

In addition to take-off and landing rights for Atlantic routes, the EU wants to discuss allowing greater foreign ownership of US airlines, the possibility for EU airlines to operate domestic US routes and limits to state aid.

Byerly also described the issue of night flights as "highly sensitive".

Washington, as well as the global express industry, would like the EU to loosen restrictions on when planes loaded with goods can touchdown and take-off again, he added.

The details of an EU-US aviation agreement are to be discussed in Autumn 2003 following progress at the EU-US Summit in Washington on 25 June 2003.