Brussels, 26/02/2004 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has welcomed the adoption by the Council of the EU, on 26 February, of a new regulation giving it powers to apply competition rules to alliances between a European airline and a third country airline, or between foreign companies whose activities involve the EU. Until now, only mergers and alliances between European airlines could be examined under competition rules. This decision ends a long-term anomaly, underlines the Commission, which previously lacked effective enforcement powers.
As article 87 only applies to air transport between Community airports, the Commission had previously taken as its basis article 85 of the Treaty for the assessment of operations between Community and extra-Community carriers. This is a particularly cumbersome article, and did not allow the Commission to impose corrective measures for alliances which posed problems. The new regulation will extend the normal application modalities of the competition rules (articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty), as they feature in the recently adopted regulation 1/2003, to air transport between the Community and third countries, on the model used for air transport between Community airports.
Commissioner Monti has welcomed these now rules, which "will give the Commission long-due powers". The Commissioner believes that this decisions is also positive for the airlines in questions, "as there will be a clear and coherent regulatory framework for all alliances, regardless of their territorial effect", and for European consumers, "who will benefit from timely protection against any anti-competitive effects brought about by these alliances".