Brussels, 12/11/2007 (Agence Europe) - The committee on transport of the European Parliament (TRAN) has postponed by one month the vote on the report by Ulrich Stockmann (PES, Germany) on the proposed directive on airport charges. The vote, which was scheduled for 20 November, has been adjourned to allow the MEPs to seek agreement on the scope of application of this directive.
The proposal in question, which was put forward last January by the European Commission (see EUROPE 9350) with the aim of harmonising the taxation principles of aviation operators for the use of airport services (takeoff, landing, aircraft parking, access infrastructure, etc) and clarify the competition rules between European airports, has already raised criticism and controversy among the MEPs. On the one hand, most of them are opposed to the principle recommended by the Commission, which would like the directive to concern some 150 airports, at least one in each member state (under the Commission's proposal, the directive would apply to airports handling a million passengers or 25,000 tonnes of goods every year). More specifically, most of the MEPs would like to see a reduction in the number of airports covered by the scope of application of the proposal. However, they are divided on the ways of achieving this and on the scale of this reduction. The committee will seek to reach a compromise, allowing the number of airports to be reduced, in such a way as to exclude regional airports and to penalise the largest member states the most. The members of the TRAN committee also disagree on the details of this compromise. The proposal by the rapporteur (supported by his group) is to increase the number of airports covered by the directive in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain (he is proposing that the directive cover airports handling 5 million passengers and representing 15% of the annual traffic in the member state in question every year). Basically, this proposal would include Heathrow, Gatwick, Paris CDG and Paris Orly, Frankfurt and Munich, Rome and Milan - Malpensa, Madrid and Barcelona, whereas the proposals of other MEPs, which provide for the annual traffic threshold to be increased from 15% to 20%, would concern only the largest airports of the member states in question (London Heathrow, Paris CDG, Rome, Madrid, Frankfurt). The MEPs will also include a definition of “networks of airports” in the directive. (A.By.)