Awwal 28, 1432 H/March 3, 2011, SPA -- The European Union and the United States signed a cooperation agreement in the Hungarian capital on Thursday that aims to harmonize air traffic control development, dpa quoted EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas as saying. As the current holder of the rotating EU presidency, Hungary was hosting a high-level conference on the implementation of the Single European Sky initiative, which is meant to end the fragmentation of European airspace along national borders from 2012. The new agreement, signed by the US Federal Aviation Authority's international affairs manager Carey Fagan, calls for increased coordination between the EU project and the equivalent US project NextGen, the state news agency MTI reported. Hungary's state secretary for infrastructure development, Pal Volner, said his country and six other Central European nations will sign a deal in April to create a "functional airspace block" as part of the EU initiative. Kallas noted that US airspace has just 20 control centres, while Europe has 58 centres to direct just half the amount of air traffic. -- SPA
