U.S. offers "open skies" concessions to EU states = = = = Thursday January 23, 12:52 PM EST = By Robin Pomeroy BRUSSELS, Jan 23 (Reuters) - The United States has offered to make change= s to its individual aviation trade pacts with 11 European Union countries= to bring the accords into line with EU law and remove a major hurdle to = cross-border mergers in the industry, it said on Thursday. Washington is responding to an EU court ruling which last November declar= ed elements of the "open skies" pacts illegal under EU law, in an effort = to head off calls by the EU's executive Commission for member countries t= o rip up their bilateral treaties with the United States and start again.= "Our goal is to safeguard the existing market-oriented framework for air = services," John Byerly, a deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. State De= partment, told Reuters by telephone from Washington. = The key change would be to delete the "ownership clause" from the pacts w= hich the industry says has prevented mergers and acquisitions between air= lines based in different EU states. In common with most of the bilateral treaties which govern international = air traffic rights, U.S. open skies deals only confer transatlantic landi= ng rights on airlines of the country with which each deal was made. As a result carriers need to keep their national identitities to retain t= heir international landing rights. For example possible EU airline mergers such as that considered by Britis= h Airways (BAY) and Dutch carrier KLM (KLM) have been dogged by doubts ov= er whether a single merged carrier would keep all of their respective Bri= tish and Dutch-held international traffic rights. Byerly said the new-style pacts would guarantee that merged EU airlines w= ould maintain those rights with the United States. He said the changes would not recognise the EU as a single transatlantic = aviation market, however. All EU states except Britain, Greece, Ireland and Spain have open skies d= eals with the United States. CONTAINER THREAT The European Commission, which campaigned for years, without success, to = stop member states signing the U.S. bilaterals in the 1990s wants to nego= tiate a new deal with Washington on behalf of the entire bloc. Commission transport spokesman Gilles Gantelet said EU states should be w= ary of accepting the U.S. offer. "Any new bilateral agreement which is co= nsidered illegal will be challenged in the (European) Court of Justice," = he said. Member states would face fines if they fail to comply with November's rul= ing, Gantelet said. On Thursday the Commission also called on EU states to give it the power = to negotiate a maritime anti-terrorism security regime with Washington in= stead of striking bilateral deals under the U.S. Container Security Initi= ative. The Commission claims the CSI, which puts U.S. Customs officers at the wo= rld's biggest ports to screen containers for possible bombs, favours some= ports over others and that trade and customs issues must be handled at E= U, not national, level. "It would be more effective to have a community (EU)-wide agreement with = the United States rather than these piecemeal, bilateral one-off deals," = Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd told a news briefing. = =A92003 Reuters Limited. = Roger EWROPS