The European Commission (EC) does not want member nations of the European Union (EU) to negotiate bilateral air-transport agreements with foreign countries - especially with the USA. It has long wanted to take on that duty itself, on behalf of the EU as a whole. The trouble is that the EU, as a group of individual nations, seems hell-bent on negotiating progressively more liberal individual bilateral agreements with the USA and others.
EC Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock is trying to raise the profile of this complex and highly sensitive issue once again - but the question remains over whether the motivation for this initiative is the good of the EU or the power of the EC. Kinnock calls the issue one of "negotiation between two air-transport systems", rather than between individual nations. The one point on which he is unquestionably right is that he sees the USA, with its geographical size and sheer commercial air-transport-industry magnitude, as an air-transport system rather than a nation. That has become even more true with the opening up of the markets, between the USA and Canada and Mexico, which effectively brings the North American market in close parallel, with the European one.
The whole point about bilaterals, however, whether they are negotiated between individual nations or blocks of nations, or a combination of the two, is that they are primarily instruments of protectionism. Any bilateral has as its central plank the concept of limiting what one or other party can do. In that any bilateral acts as a restriction to open and free competition and trade, not to promote it.
Kinnock, who apparently reviles bilaterals as being anti-competitive and anti-consumer, proclaims open skies as his aim, yet declares that he wants to negotiate a bilateral, even if it is between blocs rather than nations.
His argument for being allowed to negotiate an anti-competitive bilateral, instead of letting individual nations negotiate anti-competitive bilaterals, is that they will get a better deal if they leave negotiation to the EC. He can, he says, "...wield the full weight of the 15 countries of the EU" on their behalf. Wield what, and for what purpose?
Certainly, he does not appear to have the power of the UK behind him, as it is busy negotiating the mother of confusions with the USA. It certainly does not have the power of the Netherlands, which has long had an open skies agreement, in place with the USA, nor that of the Germans, who have a perfectly good deal in place. In short, the more powerful of the EU nations tend not to want centrally conducted negotiation, and neither does the USA.
Kinnock says that there are no protectionist motives in the EC policy - the intent is merely to "maximise opportunities." That no bilateral can do for both parties. It can only increase opportunities for the side, which, at the moment of negotiation, sees itself as the disadvantaged party. Real open skies means, theoretically unlimited opportunities for all parties, and needs no negotiation.
Of course, Kinnock points out, there have to be regulatory safeguards to protect safety and reliability, to prevent predatory practices, and to protect "essential services". That is not all, however: to maximise opportunities for both parties in an open marketplace, bilaterals would have to encompass things which no negotiator can deliver, such as untrammeled expansion at the airports to which airlines wish to fly, and the expansion of available airspace capacity to match their aspirations.
If Kinnock wants to convince the EU nations' transport ministers that they should fall in line behind him, he must define much more precisely what he believes "the power of the EU" can deliver which they cannot, at present, negotiate for themselves.
Source: Flight International
