The Committee on Transport and Tourism adopted the report by Theresa GRIFFIN (S&D, UK) on the draft Council decision on the conclusion on behalf of the European Union of the Air Transport Agreement between the European Community and its Member States, of the one part, and the United States of America, of the other part.
The committee recommended that Parliament give its consent to the conclusion of the agreement.
As stated in the explanatory memorandum accompanying the draft recommendation, the so-called "first stage agreement" was signed on 25 and 30 April 2007 and has been applied on a provisional basis since 30 March 2008. Parliament gave its consent to the conclusion of the agreement on 11 October 2007.
The ratification process of the agreement was completed by all the Member States, with the exception of Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia, in November 2014.
In October 2015, the Commission presented an amended proposal for a Council decision on the conclusion of the agreement, in order to take account of the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon and the fact that Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania had become EU Member States in the meantime.
The draft decision submitted for approval by Parliament includes the legal modifications required by the European Court of Justice case law established in its judgment of 28 April 2015.
In July 2017, the EU and the USA celebrated the 10 Years Anniversary of the EU-US Air Transport Agreement. It is widely seen as a great achievement. The transatlantic market today totals 55 million passengers, this is 6.4 million more passengers and 52 more city-pairs being served than 10 years ago.
The United States and the European Union are still today the most developed aviation markets.
However, it should be noted that the combined share of passengers carried through EU and US airports has gone down from 61% of total world passengers in 2000 to 38% in 2015. This reflects the changing nature of aviation markets and the need for ever closer cooperation in international aviation.