EU and Peru agree on horizontal air services agreement
14-Sep-2009 Delegations of the European Commission and Peru initialled on 02-Sep-2009 in Lima a Horizontal Aviation Agreement which will restore legal certainty for the bilateral air services agreements between Peru and EU Member States.
The agreement will modernise the legal framework for air services between Peru and the EU and establish for the first time a direct legal relationship between Peru and the EU in the field of civil aviation. Most importantly, it will remove nationality restrictions in the bilateral air services agreements between EU Member States and Peru. Thereby, it will allow any EU airline to operate flights between Peru and any EU Member State where it is established and where a bilateral agreement with Peru exists and traffic rights are available.
The agreement constitutes an important step towards further strengthening the aviation relations between the EU and Peru and encouraging further air traffic between the EU and Peru. The "horizontal" aviation agreement does not replace the nine bilateral agreements in place between the EU Member States and Peru but brings them in line with EU law, by removing the nationality restrictions contained in bilateral air services agreements.
The agreement with Peru is the 41st "horizontal" aviation agreement negotiated by the European Commission. More than 800 bilateral air services agreements have already been modified by the joint efforts of the European Commission and Member States to replace nationality rules with the principle of EU airline designation.