Originally Posted by
notquiteaff
Why, though? Why can the US impose rules on flights departing from the EU to the US, and the EU apparently cannot impose EC 261/2014 rules on non-EU carriers flying *to* the EU? (Or could they and just chose not to?)
The difference is that the EC261/2014 specifically defines its applicability. For what ever reasons the EU did not decided to apply it to flights into the EU flown by non EU airlines. However, there is nothing that would prevent them from applying it to non-EU airlines flying to EU destinations.
Here is the applicability text:
(a) to passengers departing from an airport located in the terri-
tory of a Member State to which the Treaty applies;
(b) to passengers departing from an airport located in a third
country to an airport situated in the territory of a Member
State to which the Treaty applies, unless they received
benefits or compensation and were given assistance in that
third country, if the operating air carrier of the flight
concerned is a Community carrier.
The US can and does apply different security requirements to flights into the US than are applied to other destinations from those countries. Basically it is the US says if you don't do this you cannot fly here. That is how they are able to do this.
The main difference is that the EU tends not to manage as much flights into their country as much as the US, but it doesn't mean they couldn't. For example, they could say that no electronics in hold luggage into the EU and the US would have to comply with that restriction.