Luxembourg, 07/04/2008 (Agence Europe) - At their Council meeting in Luxembourg on 7 April, EU transport minsters reached political agreement on a draft directive on airport charges, unveiled by the European Commission in January 2008. Despite reservations voiced by Luxembourg, the draft agreement stipulates that the directive should cover all airports with annual traffic of more than 5 million passengers and also the largest airport in each member state (see EUROPE 9556). The latter measure explains Luxembourg's reservations since it sees it as a threat to its only airport.
During the debate, Luxembourg's transport minister, Lucien Lux, said that his country was preparing a unilateral statement outlining its position and aiming to ensure the temporary exemption of an airport covered by the legislation. Lux recalled that Luxembourg would opt for a single criterion (passenger numbers) when deciding on the directive's scope of application.
The Council's text also settles the question of the structure of charges by foreseeing the introduction of a minimum legal framework. In order to take account of the European Parliament's views, the Council decided that such a framework should give member states the freedom to include airports' commercial income (duty free shops, newsagents, clothes shops, etc) in the calculation of airport charges. It rejected, however, the European Parliament's desire of direct reference being made to the funding model used by airports (single till or double till), a highly controversial issue that has prevented the text from being adopted on several occasions thus far (see EUROPE 9583). This will have to be solved through the current dialogue with the EP (see EUROPE 9636), and in addition, the Council and EP also need to settle the question of pre-funding of new airport infrastructure. The Council says member states should ensure that the airport manager consults users before finalising any new infrastructure project, but the EP has added that it wants pre-funding to only be able to start five years ahead of the investment becoming operational. (A.BY)