Brussels, 05/07/2002 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has authorised the airline companies Austrian Airlines (Austria) and Lufthansa (Germany) to conclude a partnership agreement, as the parties have resolved all the competition problems posed by this cooperation. As notified, the agreement would have created almost a monopoly for the operation of air services between Austria and Germany with potentially high prices (see EUROPE of 15 December 2001, p.17). Austrian Airlines and Lufthansa therefore proposed to sell up to 40% of the timeslots that they currently use to new competitors over all the routes between the two Member States. The two partners also agreed to reduce their tariffs on routes where there is no competition by a percentage identical to the reductions that they grant for routes open to competition. Given these commitments, the Commission agreed to exempt the agreement under Article 81 paragraph 3, for a duration of six years, with retroactive effect from 10 December 1999, the date when the agreed had been notified.