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EU ministers back plan to end U.S. air dispute

BRUSSELS: European Union transport ministers on Tuesday backed proposals to end a dispute with the United States over aircraft noise.

The ministers, meeting in Brussels, gave their support to compromise proposals from the EU's executive Commission for solving the long-running row over an EU law to phase out aircraft fitted with noise mufflers or "hushkits", EU officials said.

The EU legislation, which takes effect on May 4, has threatened to blow up into a major transatlantic trade dispute. Washington says it discriminates against U.S. hushkit makers and has already cost U.S. firms up to $2 billion in lost business.

In a statement, the ministers took note of the Commission's intention to seek a compromise with the U.S. authorities under which the law would take effect as scheduled for European carriers on May 4 but parts of it affecting non-EU countries would be suspended.

In exchange, the United States would have to suspend the complaint it has lodged against the EU law at the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

Both the EU and the United States would have to adopt a joint declaration to cooperate in ICAO on drafting new, tougher aircraft noise regulations.

"The Council (of Ministers) said that on that basis it would be prepared to back an agreement," EU Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio said.

However, she cautioned that there was no agreement yet. "We are talking about the basis for a possible agreement. In principle, it appears that we could make headway on the basis of this possible agreement," she told a news conference.

De Palacio discussed the proposal on Monday in Brussels with U.S. Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater. But the United States has not said what it thinks about the new EU proposals.

The European Parliament must also give its approval for any change in the law.

The EU and the United States were close to an agreement two weeks ago but the chance of an accord slipped away after the United States filed its complaint against the EU law at ICAO.

Slater voiced hope on Tuesday that efforts to resolve the row could be put back on track. "We're just hopeful that we will be able to re-engage on the issue and to come to some resolution that respects the ICAO process," he told a Brussels news conference.

However, he said the United States would not sign under duress any pledge to negotiate an international agreement on air noise standards.

"At some point you have to trust people. If you are signing something because it's a joint declaration and an expression of mutual commitment, that's one thing. But if someone is demanding you sign something so that they can believe you that's another thing and I don't think we want to get into that," he said.

The law would ban from May 4 the registration in the EU of hushkit-fitted aircraft and ban from April 1, 2002 the circulation in the EU of hushkit-fitted aircraft registered in a non-EU country after May 4.

EU officials suggested the May 4 deadline for registering the aircraft in non-EU countries or the April 1, 2002 ban on hushkitted aircraft from outside the EU could be pushed back.-Reuters