Russia surrendered 10% of Siberia

Air transit fees will decrease starting in 2010

Russia has softened its position regarding the fees it charges foreign airlines for transit flights over its territory (the total amount of these funds is estimated at $300-350 million annually). The authorities of the European Union, as is known, insist on the elimination of this financial mechanism, which in our country “supplements” the system of payment for air navigation support that is common in world practice. At the Russia-EU summit, held last Friday in Helsinki, the heads of transport departments of the two sides agreed on the principles of modernizing “Trans-Siberian” payments. The head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, highly appreciated this achievement. “The European Commission has been negotiating for a long time on the gradual abolition of fees for overflights over Siberia,” he said at a press conference in the Finnish capital. “The agreement reached will require a complete modernization of systems and will open a new era of cooperation between Russia and the EU in the aviation field.”

The issue of the Trans-Siberian Railway has been one of the most important irritants in Russia's commercial relations with the rest of the world for several years now. Airlines and authorities in different countries are seeking to eliminate this system, using a variety of methods. For example, some American and Asian air carriers are boycotting Trans-Siberian air corridors. Although experts from the domestic Ministry of Transport assure that even at the current level of tariffs, it would be more profitable for these companies to fly from Asia to Europe via the Trans-Siberian Railway than on other - longer - routes. American authorities called the unresolved problem of the Trans-Siberian Railway one of the main obstacles preventing them from agreeing to Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization.

The European approach to this problem is as follows. European airlines are actively using the Trans-Siberian Railway under current conditions, without, however, hiding their dissatisfaction with them. EU member countries have given the European Commission a mandate to negotiate with Russia on this matter. Last Friday in Helsinki, the commission managed to get Russia to agree to divide Trans-Siberian payments into two components and continue to treat them differently. As Transport Minister Igor Levitin explained to RIA Novosti, the payment consists of a “commercial part”, the size of which the state cannot influence (the flight is formally regulated by Aeroflot’s commercial agreement with the corresponding foreign airline), and a fee for landing in Moscow (which is not physically carried out ). Nevertheless, takeoff and landing tariffs are regulated in Russia by the state. This, as Mr. Levitin stated, gives the domestic authorities the right to dispose of money for non-existent landings on the Trans-Siberian Railway. According to the minister, Russia “will be able to remove this fee in 2010,” and all other payments will not change until 2013. The EU, on the contrary, expects that in 2013 this fee will be abolished completely and permanently. According to Mr. Levitin, the decision to abolish the fee “for landing in Moscow will lead to Russia losing 10-15% of the total amount of payments.” Until now, the Russian authorities have never agreed to reduce these payments by any specific amount.

Mr. Levitin, unlike Mr. Barroso, emphasized that the agreement with the European Commission preserves the total amount of payments at the current level at least until 2010. And the press service of the Ministry of Transport issued a press release emphasizing the interim nature of the agreements. Firstly, as the press service points out, they still need to be confirmed through the exchange of relevant letters between the European Commission and the Russian government. And secondly, the agreed principles will only serve as the basis for negotiations between the Russian authorities and each of the EU member countries. This will be necessary, since currently issues of air communication between Russia and Europe are regulated not by a common document at the EU level, but by bilateral agreements. In the process of bilateral negotiations, Russia expects to obtain reciprocal concessions from the EU countries, primarily in the form of increasing the frequency of flights to Europe by Russian airlines.

In the final communique of the European Commission from the Russia-EU summit, a laconic but generally optimistic paragraph is devoted to the problem of the Trans-Siberian Railway: “The European Commission and Russia approved the results of negotiations on the gradual abolition of fees for overflights in Siberia. This will make European carriers significantly more competitive on routes between Europe and Asia."

Mikhail KUKUSHKIN