Gezamenlijke Europese Luchtvaartruimte uitgebreid met Noorwegen, IJsland, en acht Balkanlanden (en)

Today, the European Commission and eight South East European partners (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro and the United Nations Mission in Kosovo) as well as Norway and Iceland reached an agreement to create a European Common Aviation Area.

"This is a major agreement which will put impetus on the political and economic integration of Europe, for which air transport plays a key role", said Vice-President Jacques Barrot i responsible for transport. "The creation of the European Common Aviation Area will open up market opportunities for the aviation industry and give people better travel options."

The European Common Aviation Area (ECAA) will create a seamless and efficient European air transport network, linking European people, countries and cultures, and play a vital role in the further integration and development of Europe as a whole. The negotiations on the ECAA Agreement with the South East European partners were launched in March 2005 and took less than a year to be concluded. It is expected that the ECAA Agreement will be signed under the Austrian presidency and will enter into force soon after.

The ECAA will rest on 2 inseparable pillars:

1) Aligning aviation standards and regulations in Europe on safety, security, competition policy, social policy and consumer rights. The harmonisation of laws with EU legislation illustrates the willingness of the South East European countries to share the European Union's values and principles. As aviation plays an important role in connecting people and economies, the ECAA will also help to prepare candidate countries in the region for EU membership. The level of regulatory convergence is unprecedented, as all 8 ECAA partners have accepted to align their national aviation legislation to the complete set of EU legislation on aviation.

2) Opening up market opportunities for the aviation industry on both sides by creating a single market for aviation consisting of 35 countries and more than 500 million people i.e. 52 million additional people to the EU market. Air traffic between the EU and South-East Europe has seen significant growth recently, 121% growth since 2001, and this trend will be accelerated through full integration in a common air transport market. Forecasts for aircraft movements in the region predict an average annual growth rate of more than 6% per annum between 2005 and 2011. As tourism is a huge growth area in the coastal regions in South East Europe and as there are potentially 414 airports in the region to operate to, there is an opportunity for further growth to be attained. As a result, affordable air travel will be increasingly accessible to a greater number of people.

For more information please visit:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/transport/air/international/index_en.htm