The third meeting of interinstitutional talks (“trialogue”) held in Brussels on Wednesday 17 October between representatives of the European Parliament and the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union on revision of Regulation 868/2004 aimed at combating unfair competition with airlines from third countries, allowed the institutions to reach agreement on a number of points and to identify the main areas of work.
The trialogue meeting was further to two first political meetings held in June and September (see EUROPE 12103, 12051), several technical meetings having been held in the meantime.
These discussions fall within the framework of the Commission’s proposal to revise the text in June 2017 (see EUROPE 11804). The Council and the Parliament adopted their respective positions during the first half of this year, while that of the MEPs appeared stricter (EUROPE 12036, 11984).
According to information available to us, the trialogue on 17 October showed gradual convergence of opinion between the negotiators, with a view to reaching a political agreement next month.
Thus, it is said, the Parliament and the Council reached agreement on the content of the notion of “Union interest” which should be assessed at the end of a Commission investigation with a view to imposing sanctions, or not, on a third company. This notion would thus encompass elements on connectivity, social aspects and consumers. The Council could thus take a step towards the EP on this point.
In return, the Parliament could be flexible when it comes to withdrawing Article 10 from the Commission proposal on the adoption of potential measures against a third airline for violation of international obligations. It would then be a matter of reaching agreement on the exact wording of the recitals and core of the text.
The Austrian Presidency of the Council would also agree to study, in some way, the possibility of adopting operational measures in the event of threat of injury that an airline could suffer because of anti-competitive practices from a third operator. It would therefore be necessary to work on definitions.
Nonetheless, there would still be significant points of difference concerning the nature of and the competent authority for adopting sanctions. The question of suspending or limiting the rights of a third company to fly has still not been resolved. There is still work to be done on provisions relating to the suspension of an investigation.
It would nonetheless seem that the spirit of the parties to the negotiation is positive, as the Council and the Parliament both hope to reach an agreement during a last trialogue meeting on 20 November. Technical work must still be done, however, in order to achieve this. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)