Brussels, 26/09/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 27 September, European Commissioner for Transport Siim Kallas will unveil a legislative package aiming to stimulate European aviation competitiveness internationally. Entitled “New horizons for European aviation”, this package will enable the European market to assert itself more in the face of fast expanding air companies particularly from the emerging countries of Asia and the Gulf.
The proposal will be based on rebalancing competition and removing unfair practices. This will be a question of bilateral agreements being negotiated directly at the European level with about 15 countries. But it will also be question of asking the United States to amend its rules on foreign ownership in aviation (25% maximum share), in order to align these rules with European precepts. Mergers between airline companies on both sides of the Atlantic could therefore take place, thus strengthening their situation in the face of competition from emerging countries. “American and European carriers can together form a powerful alliance”, Kallas says in the Financial Times on Tuesday 25 September. However, this is an ambition that could well depend on the development of the ETS file on greenhouse gas emissions in aviation.
The EU27 could give their opinion as early as December on these new horizons for European aviation. (MD/transl.fl)