Airport, EU – Baltic States, Latvia, Taxation, Transport

Riga airport.

As the airport's press secretary, Martins Langrats, informed LETA, Riga Airport supports adoption of the directive; he also underlined that Latvia is one of those forward-thinking European Union countries, where the airport tax rate is already regulated by government decisions.

"Introduction of the directive will prevent ungrounded augmentation of airport taxes and our competitors abroad will be controlled in a similar way as we are now. This will contribute to strengthening fair competition principles in the EU aviation market.

Complying with the former and also new EU legislative initiatives regarding this matter, Riga Airport will continue to grant discounts according to clearly defined and transparent principles, the airport representative pointed out.

"We are also pleased about the planned term of introduction of the directive. It will allow the airport to elaborate its development and expansion project so that we could provide equally good service both for the traditional air carriers and low-cost airlines. We will have enough time to introduce the regulations, set by the directive, in our development plan and as a result we will minimize the costs," Langrats added.

As the Press Service of the European Parliament informed LETA, the principal aim of the new draft law is to prevent unfair abuse of advantageous market positions. A consent with European Union member countries has already been reached regarding introduction of changes in airport taxes regulations.

European Parliament and European Council have agreed that the new regulations will apply to airports serving over five million passengers per year, as well as to the biggest airport of each member state disregarding the annual number of passengers it serves. Therefore, the new directive will apply also to Riga Airport.

"I hope that in two years' time, when the directive will be introduced, it will prevent occurrence of such legally-obscure court decisions as the recently announced Lithuanian regional court ruling against the Latvian airline and Latvia's central airport," Latvian deputy Roberts Zile (For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK) underlined during European Parliament debates.