@bosmantico is that clarification in the AIP?
I haven’t been able to find it antwhere even in the delegated Acts. It is not in EU law as far as I can see and if it is not there it is highly unlikelly to pass into French law.
I am surprised it is in German law unless all airfields are classed as airports in Germany.
boscomantico wrote:
Well of course not (except in Germany, where it HAS been clarified)
Sweden too, and it’s all in the AIP. I don’t think this has anything to do with any revised EU legislation however, but the end result is the same.
Gallois, it doesn’t need to be transposed into French law. An EU regulation like this one is binding in its entirety for all member states as of its implementing date. The law has changed but the customs authorities of most states, other than Getmany, have not realized it yet.
Edit: Here’s the source for the above.
Quote:
Regulations are legal acts that apply automatically and uniformly to all EU countries as soon as they enter into force, without needing to be transposed into national law. They are binding in their entirety on all EU countries.
@ArticChiller I keep asking this and no one answers. What E.U. regulation?
I’ve looked at all the references on this thread and other threads and cannot find a EU law that allows Swiss pilots to fly to any airfield/aerodrome in France or any other country in the EU without passing through a Union Airport.
I"ve read through the customs code and amendments plus implementation rules.
If people are saying that Germany and Sweden have such a law please show me.
And its not Art 141 that deal with data and postal services.
Also if its delegated regulation then EU law is not sufficient up to 2025.
Your edit which crossed with my response is that what you quote is the process not a regulation or acceptance of a regulation.
gallois wrote:
without passing through a Union Airport.
Every airport in the EU customs territory is a union airport so wherever you fly, you’ll “pass through a Union Airport”! (Well, maybe not EDXH.) See the definitions section of regulation 2015/2446.
Every airport,maybe. But every airfield and every aerodrome is not an airport.
gallois wrote:
But every airfield and every aerodrome is not an airport.
By whose definition? The EU regulation in question consistently talks about “airports” and nothing else. The terms “airfield” and “aerodrome” are not used at all.
That’s because they are not normally airports.🙂
Aerodrome is basically an old English term for airfield, however if you take somewhere like LFFK its signage is to an aerodrome.
I’m.not trying to be funny in answering your question, but there is no definitive answer, and as you say the definition of an airport and an airfield is pretty much the same. Which is why this subject becomes so complicated.
The Union Customs Code says that flights to and from an non EU country must enter and exit via a Union Airport. Nothing AFAICT says what makes a Union Airport although there is a list of them which I.cannot download for some reason.
The EU did try to regulate airports in terms of pricing, slots, charges for handling etc but failed miserably because of who owns the airports.
In the EU there are state owned airports and private airports. The control of many airports has been transferred by the state to regional authorities in some cases operated by public companies while others have been privatised.
Licencing airports is a matter for National authorities
EU regulation 2018/1139 uses the term ’public use" as one of the elements for defining which aerodromes shall comply with this regulation and will consequently need to be certified on accordance with the requirements and administrative procedures laid down in commission regulation (EU) no 139/2014.
But as nearly 500 airports in France are CAP airports Civile Airport Publique and as only just over 70 of these appear on the EU list of Union Airports, logically being a public airport cannot be the definition of a Union Airport.
Another definition of a Union Airport would be, as you say, “any airport situated within the Customs territory of the European Union”
Art 1(7) of the Delegated Act. Yet again not all airports within the customs territory of the EU appear on the EU list of Union Aorports.
A published legal opinion states "a union airport as defined in Article 2(2) of directive 2009/12/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council13, where passenger traffic was higher than 1million passengers or where the freight traffic was higher than 100,000 tonnes in the reporting period and is not situated in an outermost region as listed in Article 349 of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union.
But does this fit all the Union Airports listed eg Annecy or La Roche sur Yon..How about your airport?
One could go on with definition after definition, but the problem as I have posted all along is that unless you can quote a law/regulation which clearly defines which airports you can and cannot enter and the EU customs territory, (which no one has yet provided) I would count it risky to land there without a certain amount.of due diligence.🙂
@gallois: You make it way too complicated. EU regulation 2020/877 caused an amendment of EU regulation 2015/2446. Since this change, the pure border crossing (incl. overflying it) between EU and non-EU countries is enough to say “I have nothing to declare.”, like walking through the green channel at an airport. Only if you still have something to declare, like the need of crossing the red channel, you still need to land or depart from a customs airport first.
That’s also why this further discussion about the need to land at a certain customs airport/airfield, Union airport, AIP information etc. or not is dejure bogus, since just overflying the border alone is enough to make an ‘official’ declaration. This however wasn’t possible in the past, before 2020/877 came into effect. Now, you could technically land or depart at a private farm strip on EU-side, when flying between Switzerland (or Norway) and the EU. What remains a problem, is that many countries still don’t apply the changed 2015/2446 regulation (even when it is official law in all EU member states), so we defacto still need to land at an airport or airfield with customs first. Only German customs officially declared to apply the new EU regulation (and Sweden too, but they even had a similar national regulation before 2020/877, see also their AIP).
Again: Airport, airfield, strip… it all doesn’t matter for the law, since overflying the border alone is all what it takes to say: “I have nothing to declare.”
Just because you have nothing to declare does not mean you don’t need to pass by customs.
Even taking all the amendments and implementing procedures into account the regulations still say you must enter and exit the EU via a Union Airport.
The amendments to the regulation regarding simply crossing a border is a declaration of nothing to declare has been in the French AIP long before it appeared in the German AIP which is only a recent thing. Yet there is as I have pointed out, a list of Union Airports.
As A_A has pointed out, that according to some EU definitions “all airports in the EU are Union Airports”. Yet when the EU and EASA tried to regulate the security, the slots, the handling, the services required and the prices airports were allowed to charge for these services, they failed miserably.
Many airport operators and owners did not sign up to being regulated at all at an EU level. Others were already being regulated by the EU when EASA brought ICAO requirements, or some of them into EU law. Some airports were somewhere in the middle. Some signed up
Hence there is a list of Union Airports. As I have written before 70+ in France. I wouldn’t know how many airports/airfields in Germany are Union Airports, perhaps all are. It might be the same in Sweden.
Whilst I know there is a list, as I have said I cannot seem to download it from the EU sites at present.
@Frans if you and others think that it is EU law that from a GA perspective you have got this correct, then go for it.
Before BxxXit many Brit pilots used to fly to and from the UK without passing through P.of Es. on the basis that freedom of movement and custom union rules, gave them that right.
I never heard of any of them getting fined at all, let alone heavily. I know of quite a few who used to arrive at LFFK direct from the UK and go back direct. Were they right? I don’t think so..But not until there was a big splash all over the internet or aviation magazines of a huge fine being imposed, were we likely to find out.
IMHO this is the same sort of circumstance.
