EU transport ministers will try to agree on changes to the current rules about air passenger rights and airline liability on Thursday (5 June).
The revised proposal, which the European Commission adopted in March 2013, is far from dead. While member states in the Council have held many discussions on the topic for over a decade, they have not agreed on a general approach for negotiations with MEPs.
And last week, EU ambassadors also failed to reach an agreement.
Key issues over the years have included compensation rules for delays (from the current three-hour delay minimum, to five hours for short-haul flights, nine hours for medium-haul, and 12 hours for long-haul) and cancellations, as well as compensation for missed connections, and the definition of "extraordinary circumstances.”
A long-standing dispute between Spain and the UK over Gibraltar's airport has also contributed to the impasse.
When travelling by plane, most delays are between two and four hours (measured by arrival time) — which has prompted consumer organisations such as BEUC to demand the current standards are maintained.
According to LENNOC, a European flight data company, the proposed new delay limits of five, nine, and 12 hours would take away compensation rights from 85 percent of passengers.
And in a recent survey, AirAdvisor, a company helping passengers claim compensation, found that 92 percent of French travellers and 96 precent of UK travellers are against any reduction in compensation entitlements.
As airlines argue that current rules require them to cancel flights due to compensation costs, a compromise prepared by the Polish EU presidency aims to give an incentive to air carriers to deliver passengers to their destination. Overall, more than 970 million people in the EU travel by air every year.
Beyond air passengers' rights, ministers will also discuss rules for the registration documents for vehicles and commercial vehicles inspections.
In the European Parliament, MEPs are expected to extend on Tuesday (3 June) the EU-Ukraine road transport agreement until the end of 2025 to facilitate cross-border trade.
On Friday (6 June), EU ministers will aim to adopt a position on cyber crisis management and resilient connectivity. The 27 will also discuss the growing importance of satellite connectivity for the EU’s strategic autonomy, and the implementation of roaming in Ukraine and Moldova.
Ahead of the upcoming Danish EU council presidency, political group leaders and EU parliament president Roberta Metsola will travel to Copenhagen this week, with a conference between Metsola and Danish PM Mette Frederiksen scheduled for Tuesday.
On Wednesday (4 June), the European Commission will present its proposal for the annual budget of the European Union for 2026 — which will be presented to MEP in the budget committee on the same day by the EU commissioner Piotr Serafin.
Also on Wednesday, the European Commission is expected to present its proposal for an EU Ocean Pact in a bid to strike a balance between environmental protection and the development of coastal communities and the fishery sector.
Nato’s Ukraine defence contact group also meets on Wednesday, which will be followed by the transatlantic alliance defence ministers' meeting on Thursday. The meeting comes in the run-up to a key Nato summit later this month, where Donald Trump is expected to redouble his push for a five-percent of GDP defence spending target.
Delegations from Russia and Ukraine are due to meet in Istanbul on Monday for a second round of ceasefire talks.
On Wednesday, EU and Moldovan officials will meet to discuss Moldova’s future within the European Union and Russia’s war in Ukraine. This comes ahead of the first-ever EU-Moldova summit on 4 July.
Still on enlargement, MEPs in the foreign affairs committee will assess progress and reforms in several candidate countries for their future EU membership on Wednesday.
Russian opposition figures Yulia Navalnaya, Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin, will also address the foreign affairs committee on Thursday, while foreign interference and Russian hybrid threats will be the subject of discussion in the special committee on the European Democracy Shield on Tuesday.
Sharon McGuinness, chief of the European Chemical Agency, will be at the parliament’s environment committee on Wednesday, with the REACH revision and PFAS universal ban expected high on the agenda.
And the next European Central Bank (ECB) interest rate decision is due on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Poland’s EU Council presidency will host an EU-US informal ministerial meeting on justice and home affairs on Monday (2 June) and Tuesday in Warsaw. This comes amid trade tension and follows a US court decision last week that found many of the Trump administration's tariffs to be illegal.
Also this week, a delegation of MEPs will travel to Bratislava to assess the developments in Slovakia in the area of democracy, rule of law and fundamental rights.
“The political developments in Slovakia are clearly moving in the wrong direction. It is evident that the Fico government is pursuing a course that puts democracy and the rule of law under pressure,” said Green German MEP Daniel Freund, following a separate mission trip in which he participated last week.
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Elena is EUobserver's editor-in-chief. She is from Spain and has studied journalism and new media in Spanish and Belgian universities. Previously she worked on European affairs at VoteWatch Europe and the Spanish news agency EFE.
Elena is EUobserver's editor-in-chief. She is from Spain and has studied journalism and new media in Spanish and Belgian universities. Previously she worked on European affairs at VoteWatch Europe and the Spanish news agency EFE.