European Commission Update: It Is All About Open Skies
European Commission director general for mobility and transport Henrik Hololei provides an update on the ongoing discussions over a new aviation agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom after Brexit and warns of the real threat of no flights operating on day one. He highlights the progress of discussions on the EU-ASEAN open skies agreement and optimism an agreement could emerge before the end of 2018, while also highlighting the conclusion of agreements with Armenia and Tunisia; proposed agreements with Qatar, Turkey and Azerbaijan; and new mandates to negotiate with Mexico and Oman.
Transcript
Henrik Hololei:Well, I don't think that we are actually at this moment much further than we were about a year ago. And unfortunately, the clock continues to tick very fast. And in fact, I think it would be fair to say that at this stage, we don't know. What is going to be the aviation relationship between the EU and the UK on the 30th of March 2019? And whether there will be flights or whether we would face a situation where at least on day one we will not see any flights taking off or landing, at least not legally. But of course, what we have built here, the European aviation single market, has been a huge success and the UK has been an integral part of that and also one of those who has been spearheaded forward. It's a great shame that now they are going to exit that market and now sort of have to find a way how to be in the future part of it. But as you know, these discussions, these negotiations between the EU and UK, they are first and foremost concerning the big political building blocks. I mean, we talk about the Irish border, we talk about the citizens, we talk about the trade agreement. And unless we know what is going to be the general framework, what's going to be the future relationship, we cannot really carve out anything specific for the sectors like transport or more specifically aviation. And of course, we would like to see people moving from one side to the other and that there will be as little disruption as possible. But of course, for that, something It has to happen and we need to have the green light to move ahead and we are not there yet. For us, the open skies concept has been working very well. Europe has been also a great contributor but also a great beneficiary from the open skies policies. I mean, the EU-US of course is a landmark agreement and we all benefit significantly. But we are now also taking steps in creating another very important landmark agreement, namely between the EU and ASEAN, which means 1.1 billion people market and the 10 very fast-growing Southeast Asian states teaming up and negotiating with the EU. And we are very optimistic that by the end of this year we could see an agreement emerging which would then be, I would say, the second most important agreement that the EU has had. We are also progressing very well in our negotiations with Qatar, which is also interesting and important because it will be the first Middle Eastern country with whom we would have a predictable legal framework in the form of the Comprehensive Air Transport Agreement. And again, I'm optimistic seeing the progress that has happened during the last weeks. that we will make significant advancement this year and maybe even come to an agreement. We are also negotiating currently with Turkey. That might take a little bit longer. We are asking for new mandates to negotiate with Mexico, Oman. We have just concluded the agreements with Tunisia, Armenia. We are very close also with Azerbaijan. So there is quite a lot of things happening in this front, and I think that the best thing really is to Create predictable legal frameworks, create real aviation partnerships between EU and its important third countries. I would say that protectionism and nationalism is not an option, and open skies is something which creates the opportunities to connect people and businesses, create new opportunities, and open up the world. So let's keep it like that.
Copyright policy: All transcripts on this site are the copyright of CAPA - Centre for Aviation. Our reproduction policy is as follows: you may quote up to 400 words of any transcript on the condition that you attribute the transcript to CAPA - Centre for Aviation and link to the original video page. All other use is prohibited. While we aim for 100% accuracy in the transcript, there may be some minor transcribing errors.