(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission on Thursday implicitly acknowledged problems holding up the signing of an agreement with Russia over a reduction in taxes EU airlines pay to fly over Siberia.

EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot and Russian Transport Minister Minister Igor Levitin on Wednesday postponed an EU-Russian aviation summit planned for next week.

Barrot's spokesman Michele Cercone told reporters in Brussels that the meeting had been put off "to allow a more detailed elaboration of the issues put on the agenda of the EU-Russia aviation summit."

The European Union and Russia announced in November 2006 an agreement to phase out the taxes that was supposed to enter into force in September this year but has been left unsigned.

Despite the delay, Cercone said "there was no real sign of a back-slide by the Russians."

"There's been contact and even in the last days an exchange of letters went on and the Russian authorities have confirmed their commitment to sign the agreement," he added.

"We hope that as soon as possible we will receive a clear roadmap and calendar from the Russian authorities for the signing of the agreement," he said.

Cercone said that the delay had no link with a dispute between Berlin and Moscow over Russian efforts to force Lufthansa to move its central Asian cargo hub to Siberia.

Under the agreement, Russia is supposed to gradually reduce the taxes until they are entirely scrapped at the end of 2013 and is to offer new routes over Siberia that will not be subject to taxes in the meantime.

The charges, which cost EU airlines some 430 million euros (541 million dollars) in 2006, are virtually impossible for airlines to avoid. Any detour to avoid Siberian airspace becomes too costly in jet fuel and time lost.

The EU had argued that the charges violate the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation which says that no state shall impose non-commercial transit charges.

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