Vol. 568 No. 6
121 Mr. Killeen asked the Minister for Transport the impact the Amsterdam treaty has on the competence of the EU Council of Ministers to decide by qualified majority vote on the EU Commission's proposal to take over negotiations of Ireland's aviation rights. [16672/03]
I sought legal advice from the Attorney General's Office prior to the Transport Council about the decision-making process in relation to the granting of a mandate to the European Commission to negotiate an open aviation area agreement with the United States. I referred to that advice, which was not finalised at the time, in a reply to a parliamentary question on 21 May 2003. The legal advice has now been finalised.
The advice regarding the granting of a mandate is that there is an arguable, but not certain, case that the agreement of all member states may have been necessary. As I stated in my earlier reply, however, I decided that it was not realistic to contemplate that any member state would refuse to permit the other member states of the Union to engage in multilateral negotiations with the United States on a matter it wished to pursue on a multilateral basis. Accordingly, I did not object to the granting of the mandate to the Commission. The advice regarding the draft EU-US agreement that will emerge from the negotiations between the European Commission and the United States is that if the agreement contains elements of national competence, as well as elements of Community competence, it will require the assent of all member states.
As I have stated already in earlier replies and debates on this matter, I will carefully assess the draft agreement which ultimately emerges from the negotiations, in particular its impact on Shannon Airport as well as for Irish tourism, business and aviation generally.
Question No. 122 answered with Question No. 88.
Question No. 123 answered with Question No. 104.
Question No. 124 answered with Question No. 112.
