The Council reached a general approach concerning the proposed Directive on airport charges.
The Council's bodies agreed to several changes to the text of the Commission's proposal in order to enhance its clarity but also to accommodate certain concerns expressed by some Member States. The Ministers solved all outstanding issues, which concern in particular the following points:
- Scope: the Commission initially proposed to include all airports with an annual traffic of more than 1 million passengers within the scope of the Directive. In the text agreed by Ministers the threshold has been increased to 5 million and the Directive will apply equally to the largest airport in each Member State ;
- Modulation of charges for environmental and other purposes of public interest: this possibility has been included in the article on non-discrimination, in order to enable Member States to promote environmentally-friendly aircrafts at the expense of polluting aircrafts;
- Cost-relatedness: the addition of a recital referring to the ICAO Council policies on airport charges that include, inter alia, principles of cost-relatedness of charges, non-discrimination and an independent mechanism for the economic regulation of airports;
- Extending the implementation period: the period for the transposition of the Directive into national law has been extended from 24 to 36 months.