De Palacio confident of future EU-U.S. open skies deal

De Palacio confident of future EU-U.S. open skies deal    Loyola De Palacio, outgoing vice president of the European Commission in charge of transport and energy, said she is confident the European Union and the United States will conclude a long-awaited transatlantic open skies agreement, despite the slow pace of negotiations and remaining problems.
   “I am confident because there is a clear interest on both sides,” she told the at the Air Cargo Forum of the International Air Cargo Association in Bilbao Wednesday. There has been “substantial progress” between the EU and the U.S. after six rounds of negotiations, she added.
   The EC wants to introduce into the future transatlantic agreement an EU airline definition that does not discriminate between EU airlines of different countries. “There is recognition of an EU carrier designation by the U.S.,” she said. “We have done away with the nationality restriction.”
   She suggested the negotiations could take up to two years to conclude.
   The EC has insisted it wants its airlines to have access to the U.S. domestic market, the same way U.S. carriers have “fifth and seventh flying rights” within the EU. De Palacio regards the current situation as lacking balance between the two sides, and said this issue is “still a problem” in the negotiations.
   The U.S. requires U.S. ownership for airlines in its domestic market.
   But negotiators are now considering “a two-step approach” regarding the fifth and seventh flying rights — or rights to fly between airports outside an airline’s home market, De Palacio said.
   She said negotiations on a future aviation pact had been suspended because of the U.S. elections, but would resume soon.
   One spur to action on the EU side is that the current open skies agreements signed between eight individual EU governments and the United States were declared illegal by the European Court of Justice in 2002 because they reserved traffic rights to national carriers. The EC, which has a mandate to negotiate a transatlantic agreement on behalf of all EU governments, has since sought to dismantle these bilateral agreements and replace them by a pan-EU-U.S. agreement.
   “There is a clear situation of illegality,” De Palacio said. The EU national governments involved “are going to denounce the existing bilateral agreements.' She warned that, if they refuse, the governments will face heavy fines by the EC.
   De Palacio said a move away from national aviation agreements to a new open-skies transatlantic pact is officially supported by EU and U.S. airlines. However, the EC is aware that airlines are “reluctant” about this prospect, she said.