As ruled by the Court of Justice of the European Communities, the Community has exclusive competence with respect to various aspects of external aviation which were traditionally governed by bilateral air services agreements between Member States and third countries.
Consequently, the Council authorised the Commission in June 2003 to open negotiations with third countries in order to replace certain provisions in existing bilateral agreements with Community agreements.
Thus, the Commission has negotiated an Agreement with the Government of Malaysia that replaces certain provisions in the existing bilateral air services agreements between Member States and Malaysia.
These changes concern:
Article 2 (designation clause): To avoid discrimination between Community air carriers, the traditional designation clauses, referring to air carriers of the Member State party to the bilateral agreement, are replaced by a Community designation clause, referring to all Community carriers, EEA carriers and carriers of Switzerland.
Article 4 (taxation of aviation fuel): Whereas traditional bilateral agreements tend to exempt aircraft fuel in general from taxation, Council Directive 2003/96/EC restructuring the Community framework for the taxation of energy products and electricity permits such taxation for operations within the territory of the Community.
Article 5 (pricing): Resolves conflicts between the bilateral agreements and Council Regulation (EEC) 2409/92 on fares and rates for air services, which prohibits third country carriers from being price leaders on air services for carriage wholly within the Community.
Annex 1 and 2 list the bilateral agreements and their articles which are referred to in Articles 1 to 6 of the proposed Agreement; these are the agreements between Malaysia and Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom.
Annex 3 lists the other states referred to in Article 2: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway -which fall under the Agreement on the European Economic Area- and Switzerland falling under the Agreement between the European Community and the Swiss Confederation on Air Transport.
The Agreement negotiated by the Commission should be signed and provisionally applied. The proposed Council Decision empowers the President of the Council to designate the person or persons competent to notify Malaysia that the internal procedures necessary for the entry into force of the Agreement have been completed.
Parliament is entitled to give its opinion on this Agreement under the consultation procedure, in accordance with Rule 83 'International agreements', paragraph 7, which reads as follows:
"Parliament shall give its opinion on, or its assent to, the conclusion, renewal or amendment of an international agreement or a financial protocol concluded by the European Community in a single vote by a majority of the votes cast without amendments to the text of the agreement or protocol being admissible."
On the basis of the above your rapporteur suggests that the TRAN committee should give a favourable opinion on the conclusion of this Agreement.
Încheierea Acordului între Comunitatea Europeană şi guvernul Malaeziei referitor la anumite aspecte ale serviciilor aeriene