The European Commission adopted on Friday a regulation also allowing air passengers arriving from six Croatian airports and transferring at an EU airport to take liquids, aerosols and gels on-board their connecting flights. When changing planes in the EU, these passengers will no longer be obliged to abandon such items carried in their cabin baggage if bought at the following Croatian airports: Dubrovnik (DBV), Rijeka (RJK), Pula (PUY), Split (SPU), Zadar (ZAD), and Zagreb (ZAG).

'This is an important step that will save transfer passengers from a lot of inconvenience without compromising security. The Commission was able to grant this exemption for liquids bought at these Croatian airports because the Croatian national authorities have demonstrated that their security measures were as good as ours" said Vice-President Tajani, Commissioner responsible for transport. "Until methods for screening liquids are deployed at airports – which will allow the current restrictions on liquids to be lifted - this is a means of facilitating passengers and reducing the levels of liquids confiscated. I look forward to swiftly adding more third country airports onto this list".

This is the second application – after Singapore - of the rulemaking that introduced the possibility of such exemptions for liquids bought in the airports of third countries.

In response to the serious threat posed by liquid explosives to air transport, in October 2006 the Commission adopted a regulation prohibiting passengers from carrying more than small amounts of liquids past screening points and on-board aircraft. This has had an unfortunate side effect. Arriving passengers are prohibited from taking liquids bought in third country airports into the cabin of connecting flights when they change planes at an EU airport: since there is no possibility for the passenger to place these liquids in there hold baggage at a transfer airport this means that they have to leave them behind. This annoys passengers and complicates screening.

To tackle this problem, the Commission adopted Regulation (EC) No 915/2007 which allows exemptions from the prohibition for liquids bought in the airports of a third country. Such exemptions are conditional on the third country complying with EU equivalent security requirements. They are thus granted on a country-by-country basis.

The Commission hopes that, with the active co-operation of the countries concerned, it will be able to exempt from the prohibition on carrying liquids on-board connecting flights those liquids bought at their airports.