October 14: Finance Minister Dr Prakash Sharan Mahat has urged the European Union (EU) to remove Nepal from its aviation safety concern list. He made such an appeal at a sideline meeting with EU Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen in Marrakesh, Morocco on Thursday. The finance minister is currently in Marrakesh to attend the annual meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

During the meeting he also urged the EU to increase its economic assistance to Nepal, Minister Mahat's secretariat stated. 

The EU has put Nepal's airlines companies in its list of air safety concern since 2013. As a result, the airlines companies of Nepal are not allowed to operate flights in the European skies. 

The EU had refused to de-list Nepal’s airlines from the list of aviation concerns when it carried out a monitoring of Nepali airlines about a year ago. It had announced its plan of conducting an on-site monitoring of the status of air safety issues in February 2023, but the EU team did not come to Nepal for the monitoring following the air crash near the Pokhara Airport on January 15.

The EU's security committee, however, conducted an on-site study of Nepali airlines companies and on aviation security in August/September and the finance minister made this request in this context.

On the occasion, the EU Commissioner said that they would be carrying out works on this matter through the EU Embassy in Nepal and also hold discussions on this. -- RSS