The article below from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@xxxxxxxxx /--------- E-mail Sponsored by Fox Searchlight ------------\ THE CLEARING - IN THEATERS JULY 2 - WATCH THE TRAILER NOW An official selection of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, THE CLEARING stars ROBERT REDFORD and HELEN MIRREN as Wayne and Eileen Hayes - a husband and wife living the American Dream. Together they've raised two children and struggled to build a successful business from the ground up. But there have been sacrifices along the way. When Wayne is kidnapped by an ordinary man, Arnold Mack (WILLEM DAFOE), and held for ransom in a remote forest, the couple's world is turned inside out. Watch the trailer at: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/theclearing/index_nyt.html \----------------------------------------------------------/ Talk in Europe of Rescinding Open Skies Pacts May 11, 2004 By MATTHEW L. WALD WASHINGTON, May 10 - The transportation commissioner of the European Union said Monday that if the United States and Europe could not reach an "open skies" agreement soon on deregulating commercial air service across the Atlantic, then she would urge the 15 European countries that already have such agreements to renounce them. The commissioner, Loyola de Palacio of Spain, is in Washington to begin the fifth round of negotiations on an open skies agreement, which allows air carriers full access to airports in another country. She said that the current system could not continue because it gives unfair advantage to the 15 members of the 25-member European Union that already have such agreements. "The actual situation cannot remain indefinitely," she said at a news conference here. But American negotiators say that an agreement will be difficult because of a European demand that it include giving airlines the right to carry cargo and passengers from one American destination to another, or one European destination to another. That practice, which might let Air France carry a passenger from Los Angeles to New York, or FedEx carry a package from Paris to Marseille, is called cabotage. A Bush administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, insisted that cabotage "cannot occur in the near term." The United States has offered an open skies agreement that includes seeking a change in American law so that foreigners could own up to 49 percent of American carriers, up from the current limit of 25 percent, among other changes. The Europeans are seeking the right to buy a majority of the stock. But the American official said that this was a "very good near-term deal" and that demanding cabotage "would be a serious miscalculation." Asked why the United States was opposed, the official said: "We have not explored what the balance of benefits on this issue would be. It's an issue that's not on the table." The European Union won the right in 2002 to negotiate aviation agreements on behalf of its member states. Whether European countries would actually renounce existing open skies agreements is not clear. Doing so might create other problems. For example, approval by the Transportation Department of code-share agreements, which allow American and European carriers to book passengers on each other's routes, is contingent on the existence of open skies agreements because such agreements would assure that the code-share partners were not guaranteed a monopoly. Negotiators on both sides say that their best chance for an agreement is in the next few weeks. Europe holds elections next month, and Ms. Palacio's term of office ends in November, and agreements will be hard to reach as that date approaches, according to people involved in the negotiations. Jeffrey N. Shane, the under secretary of transportation for policy, said: "There is an extraordinary agreement on the table right now. It would be extremely unfortunate not to take advantage of the real and meaningful liberalization available to both sides through the package that is currently pending." Ms. Palacio and others predict strong growth in trans-Atlantic traffic with an open skies agreement. Ms. Palacio noted that the British sometimes refer to the Atlantic Ocean as "the pond," but said of an open skies agreement, "to make it really a pond, we need this bridging." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/11/business/worldbusiness/11sky.html?ex=1085282229&ei=1&en=568f941ae33ccc86 --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. 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