Brussels, 12/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - The EU-ASEAN aviation summit in Singapore on 11-12 February has surpassed the expectations of Siim Kallas. The European commissioner for transport will return to Brussels with a joint statement by the European Commission and ASEAN for a comprehensive “open skies” aviation agreement between the two blocs. He has pledged to ask for a formal negotiating brief from the Transport Council as soon as possible to enhance the link with the Asian market. This will probably happen by the end of the current parliament. The commissioner described this rapprochement with Asia as the equivalent of finding the “crucial missing link” in the EU's external aviation relations.
Speaking at the opening of the summit, the Commissioner highlighted the need to work together to “get rid of the barriers between the EU and ASEAN so that our airlines can enjoy optimum conditions to compete and grow on this market”. He also said that strengthened cooperation could “extend the proven benefits of our respective single aviation markets to a much larger inter-regional one”. The commissioner stressed that the open skies agreement could also replace the bilateral agreements already in place with Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia and would thus be the first aviation agreement in the world between two large blocs of countries.
ASEAN transport ministers welcomed the prospect of developing such an agreement. Chairman of the ASEAN Transport ministers Sommad Pholsena, the transport minister in Laos, was delighted that the two sides would be able to benefit from strengthened cooperation. He underlined the opportunity this represented for ASEAN members as a means of facilitating their own aviation integration and benefiting from European experience in building a single aviation market.
Speaking on behalf of the European and Asian airports, ACI-Europe and ACI-Asia Pacific, welcomed the prospect of a global aviation agreement between the two blocks. According to the director general of ACI-Europe, Olivier Jankovec, this development is about “upping our game in response to increasing competitive pressures from other regions”, adding “it is about boosting our own position as global aviation hub”. He also said: “We need to seize this opportunity for first mover advantage before others reap the full benefit of unrestricted market access”. ASEAN has already introduced a comprehensive aviation agreement with China and is in talks about developing a similar agreement with Japan and Korea.
Corrigendum: Contrary to what was written at the beginning of the article, “EU eyeing up aviation agreements in Asia”, published in EUROPE 11005, there was in fact no question of there being an aviation agreement with Singapore but rather, an agreement with ASEAN, as explained in the remainder of the article. (MD/transl.fl)