OREANDA-NEWS. April 10, 2012. The Moldovan government has indentified a solution for the liberalization of the air space with the European Union, until the signing of the Common Aviation Area Agreement, the government's communications and press relations department has said.

In line with the instructions made at the 14 March cabinet's meeting, the Foreign and European Integration Ministry, as well as the Transport and Roads Infrastructure Ministry have launched the procedure of the bilateral liberalization of the air space between Moldova, Germany, Italy and Austria.

Thus, starting from April 2012, all the air companies from Moldova, Germany, Italy and Austria will benefit from the needed conditions to operate flights in a liberalized regime to any destinations from the above countries, in line with the Common Aviation Area Agreement, initialized by the Moldovan government and the EU in October 2011.

The solution identified by the Moldovan government became applicable only after the EU gave the green lights to the above procedures, since the signing of the Common Aviation Area Agreement, scheduled for 22 March 2012, has been postponed on technical grounds in the EU.

A concrete result of the solution identified by the Moldovan government is the doubling of the daily flights from Munich to Chisinau, operated by the Lufthansa air company, and the launch, of several direct flights to Verona, Venice and Bologna, by the Air Moldova national operator.

So far, Air Moldova could not operate such flights, because of the limitations envisaged in the bilateral agreement between Moldova and Italy. Moreover, this bilateral liberalization creates the needed pre-requisites for the accession of the Alitalia operator into the Moldovan air services' market, including for the enhancement of the competition and the reduction of air tickets' prices.

These actions undertaken by the Moldovan government are meant to meet the citizens' expectations in terms of access to quality air services at reasonable prices.