ECAA agreements were signed on 5 May 2006 inSalzburg, Austria between the EU and some external countries. It built upon the EU'sacquis communautaire and theEuropean Economic Area. The ECAA liberalizes the air transport industry by allowing any company from any ECAA member state to fly between any ECAA member states airports, thereby allowing a "foreign" airline to provide domestic flights.
On 9 June 2006, the ECAA agreement was signed[2] by almost all of the 27EU members, theEuropean Union itself, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Iceland, Montenegro,North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia as well asKosovo (UNMIK as Kosovo representative underSecurity Councilresolution 1244). The last two EU member states to sign it were Slovakia and Latvia respectively on 13 June 2006 and 22 June 2006.
Ukraine and the EU signed a Common Aviation Area agreement on 12 October 2021, as part of the 23rd Ukraine-EU summit inKyiv. ThePrime Minister of UkraineDenys Shmyhal, the Ambassador of Slovenia (then the EU Presidency) to Ukraine Tomaž Mentzin and the Head of the EU Foreign ServiceJosep Borrell signed the agreement.[5]
Armenia started negotiations to join after a newArmenia-EU partnership agreement was signed in February 2017.[6] Armenia and the EU finalized negotiations on 15 November 2021, with the signing of a Common Aviation Area Agreement between the two sides at a ceremony in Brussels.[7]
Lebanon – On 9 October 2008, the Council of the European Union adopted a decision authorizing the European Commission to open negotiations.
Algeria – On 9 December 2008, the Council of the European Union adopted a decision authorizing the European Commission to open negotiations, though the negotiations with Algeria have not started yet.
Tunisia – On 27 June 2013, Tunisia started its negotiations.[12]
This section needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(April 2024)
Because the UK left the European Union (Brexit), the UK is no longer part of the Common Aviation Area. Permission or new treaties with the UK needed to be made so that aviation to and from the UK wouldn't stop.[13] There was a delay in this hard Brexit until the end of 2020, because theBrexit withdrawal agreement states that most EU rules continue to be valid for the UK during 2020. However, EU approved regulations 2019/494 and 2019/505 in order to secure air traffic between UK and EU plus EEA.[14]Also, the British government took various steps to ensure the continuation of air travel, such as an open skies agreement with theUnited States.[15] The British airlineEasyJet, which has many flights outside the UK, set up a subsidiary in Austria (easyJet Europe) whilst keeping its headquarters in Luton, England.
-svg.svg)
