2912.86 Official]ournal of the European Communities NoCoB]o5u27 
Opinion on the proposed amendments to Council Regulation (EEC) No 2821B71 of 
20 December 1971 on application of Article 8^(^) of thePreaty to categories of agreements, 
decisions and concerted practices 
(86^C 33^09) 
On 19 ^eptember!986 the Council decided to consult the Economic and social Committee, 
under Article 198ofthelreaty establishing the European Economic Community,onthe 
abovementioned document. 
Lhe^ectionforlransportandCommunications, which wasresponsible for preparing the 
Committee'swork on the subject, adopted its opinion on 19 Novemberl986, in the light of 
the report by Air VelascoAiancebo. 
At its 2^1st plenary session (meeting of 27 November 1986) the Economic and social 
Committee adopted the following opinion byamajority,with four abstentions. 
1. General comments 
1.1. subject to the comments set out below, the 
Committee approves the Commission's proposal to 
grant group exemption from thelreaty'scompetition 
rules to certain categories of commercial agreements 
between airlines. The need for such exemption was 
pointedout by the Committee someyears ago in its 
opinion of 27 January 198^)on previous Commission 
proposals concerning the application of the rules of 
competition to air transport. 
1.2. Lhe present Commissionproposal—as well as 
the other proposals submitted inthe same document, 
providing for waivers fromthecompetitionrulesfor 
certain technical agreements and slot allocation agree 
ment at airports—should be seen in the wider content 
of the application of the rules of competition to air 
transport. In thisrespectthe Committeeregrets that 
it has not been formally consulted on the proposals 
concerning technical agreements and slot allocation 
agreements (the latter belonging together with the com 
mercial agreements), on the various proposals put for 
wardrecently by theCommissiononCommunity air 
transport policy,and in particular on the^civil aviation' 
communicationof 20]une 1986. without wishing to 
underestimate the impact of the commercial agree 
ments, the Committee nevertheless considers that they 
areof only relativeimportancein theconte^t of the 
current discussions on aviation policy in general. 
1B^. similarly, the Committee regrets that the 
Council has still not adopted the Regulation proposed 
by the Commission in 1981 for applying^freaty Articles 
9^and86. (The initialproposal was amended by the 
Commission in 1982 and 198^). Itismorethanever 
essential that the Council speed up its work in this area in view of the Court of justice's ruling of ^30 April 
1986(^)inthe^NouvellesErontieres'case,whichcon 
firms that Articles 8eo and 86 are applicable to civil 
aviation. 
lm. The Committee, in its abovementioned opinion 
and in its opinion of 26 ^eptember!98eo(^) on the civil 
aviation memorandum No 2, acknowledged that in 
general therules of competition should apply to air 
transports but it drew attention to the need to take 
account of the specific problems of transport and of 
international air transport in particular. 
IBo. The Committee would alsopointout that the 
application of the rules of competition is interdependent 
with other aspects of aviation policy,e.g. provisions on 
tariffs, capacity and access to the market. Like the 
Commission, it considers that the proposed exemption 
from therulesof competitioncanonly begrantedif 
sufficient flexibility is ensured as regards capacity and 
tariffs.The Committee also recognises that several fac 
tors should be taken into account in the application of 
the competition rules so as to ensure thatabalance is 
maintainedbetweenthe principal interests concerned, 
i.e. not only the interests of users and airlines but also 
of governments and workers in the aviation industry, 
without jeopardising safety standards. Account should 
likewise be taken of the economic and social effects of 
a policy of competition in the air transport sector and 
of the specific features andproblems of the sector in 
each region. As aviationpolicy in general is currently 
being discussed by the Council, all these considerations 
assume special importance. 
^oi^De^^n^m^^D^ 
No C 333/28 Official Journal of the European Communities 29. 12. 86 
2. Specific comments 
2.1. While approving the present Commission pro­
posal the Committee would, however, express some 
doubts as to the classification of the agreements (techni­
cal agreements on the one hand, commercial on the 
other). It notes that certain types of technical agree­
ments are not in fact of a purely technical nature since 
they also have economic and commercial implications, 
e.g. the clearing house (category k of the technical 
agreements). 
2.2. While the Committee welcomes the possibility 
of exempting some commercial agreements between 
airlines from the competition rules, it nevertheless con­
siders that certain of the commercial agreements 
included in the present proposal, being directly linked 
with the provision of air transport services, should 
come under Council Regulation No 141/62 and the 
draft Regulation concerning the application of Article 
85 (3) to air transport (with the agreements covering 
capacity sharing, revenue pooling, consultations on tar-
Done at Brussels, 27 November 1986. iffs and conditions, and slot allocation at airports). In 
particular this is the case with the agreements between 
airlines on the common purchase, operation of or access 
to computer systems relating to time tabling, reser­
vations and ticketing. At all events the Committee is 
convinced of the importance of these agreements for 
the European airlines and their ability to withstand 
competition from the major non-European companies. 
It welcomes the possibility of concluding agreements 
of this type, provided that they are effectively non­
discriminatory between European airlines; in particular 
it believes that access to these computer systems should 
not be refused without very good reason to new com­
panies which, while not having participated in the initial 
agreements, subsequently ask to accede. 
2.3. In this connection, the Committee is of the view 
that the conditions under which some agreements 
between airlines may be exempted from the prohibition 
on concluding agreements are not sufficiently well-
defined, which will make it difficult to apply the pro­
posed provisions. 
The Chairman 
of the Economic and Social Committee 
Alfons MARGOT