The European Parliament adopted common principles for levying airport charges in a bid to prevent abuse of a dominant market position and increase transparency.

The report was adopted with 613 votes in favour, 33 against and 51 abstentions.

MEPs decided that the new rules should apply to airports with an annual traffic of more than five million passengers or which accounted annually for more than 15% of the passenger movements in the member state where it is located.

The list of the 67 airports concerned includes Bulgaria's three airports in the capital Sofia and the Black Sea towns of Burgas and Varna.

Under the new rules, all airports will be bound by common rules on provision of mutual information, transparency and the way airport charges may be collected.

It is also planned to introduce national independent regulatory authorities to ensure that the directive is applied in full and establish procedures for resolving disagreements between the airport managing body and the airlines.

Parliament introduces a new amendment saying that the airport managing body may pre-finance new infrastructure projects by increasing airport charges accordingly, on condition that airport users are provided with transparent information on the extent and duration of airport charge increases.

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