On 30 April 2004, the Directive 2004/36/CE of the European Parliament and of the Council on the safety of third-country aircraft using Community airports (the so-called 'SAFA Directive') was published, creating a legal obligation upon EU Member States to perform ramp inspections on third country aircraft landing at their airports, where ‘third country aircraft’ implied aircraft not used or operated under control of a competent authority of an EU Member State. Nevertheless, the Directive didn’t prohibit in any way EU Member States from inspecting aircraft from other EU Member States. EU Member States were provided with a transition period of two years for transposing and implementing the above-mentioned Directive.