26/05/2010 (Agence Europe) - German Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer is quoted in the EUObserver as criticising the European Commission's initial handling of the so-called volcanic “ash-cloud” crisis. “When we first had the big ash-cloud weekend (Ed: 15-17 April), the first priority of the Commission was to enable compensation for the airlines. Pardon? I said to Mr Kallas. Then the second priority was passenger rights,” he said, going on, “Then there was a long pause, then came something on the Single European Sky, and only after that they started thinking on how we are going to deal in a uniform manner with these ash clouds, when they re-appear”. Ramsauer also called for uniform international rules for future crises of this kind. He said that there should be no repeat of the situation where “we have a cloud over the Atlantic and American planes are flying through it, while European ones have to make a detour of thousands of kilometres”. (A.By./transl.rt)