Brussels, 16/01/2008 (Agence Europe) - During a plenary vote on Tuesday 15 January, the European Parliament endorsed the position of its transport committee on the subject of airport charges. With a large majority adoption at first reading (623 for, 32 against and 42 abstentions) of the report by Urlich Stokemann (PES, Germany) on the proposal for a directive on this subject, the Parliament showed itself to be in favour of regional airports, considered too small to be covered by the directive. The directive was presented by the European Commission in January 2007 to determine the rules for collecting airport charges (levied to the benefit of airport operators for the use of airport infrastructures and certain services provided by these operators) in a transparent, non-discriminatory way based on consultation between airport operators and users (see EUROPE 9350 and EUROPE 9545).
If the Commission and the Council follow this vote, the new legislation will apply to airports transferring 5 million passengers annually or to those which account for 15% of the air traffic of the member state concerned. This brings to 67 the number of European airports concerned, compared to the 150 or so initially proposed by the European Commission. Independent national regulation authorities will be entrusted with ensuring full application of the directive, and with arbitration of disputes between airport operators and users in relation to changes made to the structure or to the amount of the fees, including service quality. The level of charges in airports concerned will be put to compulsory consultation between the entity that manages the airport and the users of the airport. Consultation will also cover the way the system of charges works in a given airport, and the level of service quality provided by the managing entity. The Parliament's vote should not pose any problems either at the European Commission or in Council, which reached a general guideline on the text last December (see EUROPE 9556). Both institutions agree that the threshold of five million passengers is “acceptable”, according to the Commission vice president for transport, Jacques Barrot, who attended the debate on the eve of the vote. Agreement on the dossier as a whole may therefore be reached by summer.
The airports concerned are: Berlin-Schoenefeld, Berlin-Tegel, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt/Main, Hamburg, Hanover, Köln/Bonn, München, Stuttgart (Germany); Lyon Saint-Exupery, Marseille-Provence, Nice-Cote d'Azur, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris/Orly, Toulouse-Blagnac, Toulouse/CCER (France); Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London Gatwick, London Heathrow, London Luton, London Stansted, Manchester, Newcastle (United Kingdom); Milano/Linate, Milano/Malpensa, Venezia/Tessera, Roma/Fiumicino, Catania/Fontanarossa (Italy); Alicante, Madrid/Barajas, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Malaga, Tenerife Sur/Reina, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote (Spain); Rodos/Diagoras, Athina/Eleftherios, Iraklion/Nikos Kazantzakis, Venizelos (Greece); Timisoara, Bucharest/Henri Coanda (Romania); Sofia, Varna, Bourgas (Bulgaria); Faro, Lisboa (Portugal); Pafos/INTL, Larnaka/INTL (Cyprus); as well as Dublin (Ireland), Amsterdam/Schiphol (Netherlands), Brussels/Brussels-National (Belgium), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Tallinn (Estonia), Warszawa Okecie (Poland), Vilnius (Lithuania), Riga (Latvia), Wien/Schwechat (Austria), Bratislava (Slovakia), Budapest/Ferihegy (Hungary), Praha/Ruzyne (Czech Republic), Stockholm/Arlanda (Sweden), Kobenhavn/Kastrup (Denmark), Malta/Luqua (Malta), Helsinki/Vantaa (Finland) and Luxembourg (Luxembourg). (A.By.)