Amsterdam, 12/07/2004 (Agence Europe) - An air agreement with the USA will "probably" not be possible before the US presidential elections in November, declared the EU for transport, Loyola de Palacio on Friday after an informal transport meeting that finished on Saturday in Amsterdam. While criticising once again the unbalanced situation on Community territory, where 15 of the 25 EU Member States have concluded "open sky" agreements with the USA, the Commissioner is still refusing to explicitly request the Member States concerned to denounced these agreements, which were judged illegal by the Court of Justice in November 2002. The Commissioner's priority remains the conclusion of an agreement with the USA with which negotiations could start up again in January 2005.
Since the rejection of US proposals by the Transport Council on 10 June, the chances of rapidly concluding a Trans-Atlantic air agreement by replacing the bilateral "open skies" agreements, are very slim. The oncoming US elections makes the continuation of negotiations impossible and the imbalance between the 15 EU Member States and the other countries which signed the "open skies" agreements, continue too. In a press conference the Commissioner indicated that the situation could not last given that two of the ten Member States which had not signed the agreements intended to do so. Nonetheless, de Palacio is not going to explicitly call on the 15 Member States concerned to denounce these agreements or take them to the European Court of Justice. She was keen to point out that they were planning on different action for resolving the issue and did not mention any denunciations. This prospect was carefully avoided during the meeting in Amsterdam during which the Commissioner did not explicitly mention denunciations but pointed out that the Commission's position in its communication of November 2002, indicated Commission spokesperson Amador Sanchez Rico. This communication adopted in November following the decision of the Court of Justice, clearly calls for Member States involved to denounced these agreements (EUROPE 14 November).
The Commissioner's priority is concluding an agreement with the USA that is "acceptable to Member States". This is possible if the US guarantees better access to the air market for European airlines and if it is committed to further liberalisation in the second negotiation phase, pointed out de Palacio, who warned that she would not waver. Pressure for concluding an agreement could come from Member States such as Spain, which did not conclude an open skies agreement with the US, explained one expert. Political negotiations between the European Union and the USA cold begin again in January 2005, where as technical discussions will have taken place before then, he added.