EUROPEAN Commission (EC) Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock, has warned that, unless the EC is given a mandate to centrally negotiate future aviation agreements with the USA, "we will witness implementation of a policy that is not just America first, but America first, last, both ways across the Atlantic and within and beyond Europe".
Kinnock won unanimous backing from other EC commissioners on 26 April to present draft proposals to the Council of Transport Ministers in mid-June. If mandated, the European Commission would be able to negotiate centrally all aviation agreements with the USA.
The EC says: "The draft mandate is the Commission's balanced alternative to attempts by the US Government to sign so-called 'Open-skies' agreement with Austria, Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Luxembourg and Sweden, Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland have also been approached."
The US Department of Transportation, meanwhile, has issued its formal International Air Transportation Policy Statement, which re-affirms the Clinton Administration's drive for increased competition among the world's airlines and fewer protectionist restrictions imposed by foreign governments.
Even as Kinnock received EC backing, however, member states and their airlines were lining up in opposition to the move.
Netherlands flag-carrier KLM, operating from the only European Union (EU) nation which has a completely open-skies agreement with the USA, says that no new agreement would affect its mode of operation. KLM also warns that, Europe's "smaller countries" will resist the proposal because they believe that their cases would be so low in EU negotiating priorities.
The UK's Department of Transport (DTp), stalled in the latest of a series of vitriolic bilateral negotiations with the USA, says: "The UK will resist [Kinnock's proposal].
Kinnock argues, however, that "...it addresses issues such as computer-reservations systems and equal ownership rights which have far-reaching implications for European airlines. Member States acting alone have been unable to write such provisions into their own individual accords."
Kinnock quotes comparative figures indicating the power of the US air-transport industry, compared with that of the EU. The EC document says that among the top ten carriers on routes between Europe and the USA, the EU carriers operate only 30% of the number of routes which the US competition flies, and fly only 34% of the total number of round-trips.
Source: Flight International
