EU Begins Infringement Procedure Against Estonia
The European Commission launched infringement procedures against Estonia and five other EU countries for their bilateral aviation agreements with Russia, which regulators said may hinder competition.
The other countries on the list were Greece, Lithuania, Malta, Slovenia and Hungary.
Currently, if EU airlines want to fly their aircraft across Siberia to Asian destinations, they must accept Russia's overflight taxes, which doubly threaten to raise consumer prices. In 2008, EU carriers paid 301 million euros in duties. Much of that money went into the pockets of competing Russian airline Aeroflot.
The European Commission has now indignantly declared that agreeing to pay these fees may be in breach of EU antitrust rules and international law. "EU carriers are de facto forced into agreements with their competitor," wrote the EU statement.
Furthermore, the EU is concerned that agreements between single nations and Russia are stirring up inequalities amongst EU members, which ratified a single market agreement for aviation in the early 1990s. Russia is one of the few countries that does not treat all EU airlines as the same.
Similiar procedures were launched against 17 other member states in recent months. Estonian and Latvian air carriers do not currently offer routes to the Far East.
Ott Tammik