EU tekent luchtvaartovereenkomst met Georgië (en)
The EU and Georgia signed an aviation agreement today, which will allow European airlines to fly between Georgia and any EU Member State. The agreement was signed by Commission Vice-President Jacques Barrot i and the Georgian Minister for Economic Development Irakli Chogovadze.
"The agreement recognises that airlines in the EU are not any longer national airlines. All EU airlines will thus have non-discriminatory access to the air transport market between the EU and Georgia. This is without a doubt an important step in our external aviation policy," said Vice-President Jacques Barrot during the ceremony.
The agreement removes nationality restrictions in the bilateral air services agreements between EU Member States and Georgia and therefore allows any EU airline to operate flights between any EU Member State where it is established and Georgia. It acknowledges the existence of the single market for air transport between the EU and Georgia and demonstrates the existence of an external dimension to the single market for air transport.
The agreement with Georgia is the fourth horizontal aviation agreement to be signed following the signature of similar agreements with Chile, Ukraine and Moldova. The European Commission has also successfully negotiated similar agreements with 22 other countries, among them Croatia, Morocco, Lebanon, Singapore and Australia.
Such a "horizontal" agreement does not replace the bilateral agreements in place between the EU Member States and Georgia but brings them in line with EU law, by removing the nationality restrictions contained in bilateral air services agreements. These restrictions have been found incompatible with EU law by the European Court of Justice in the "open skies" judgements of 5 November 2002.
The agreement signed today is considered to be an important step in the aviation relations between the EU and Georgia. Air transport is crucial for the relations between the two regions, linking people, cultures and businesses alike.