Brussels, 05/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - The Danish Presidency of the EU Council is expected to reach the end of its term of office having made considerable progress in the transport programme of work. During the next Transport Council, in Luxembourg on Thursday 7 June, the EU27 may reach a partial general approach on noise pollution at airports. This is one of the three chapters of the airport package, and the second to be tackled by the Council. Delegations will also reach general guidelines on the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), which is highly significant for the funding of infrastructure in Europe, and on the draft regulation that determines a new financial and governance framework for satellite navigation. These approaches will remain partial as the delegations will not be able to discuss figures, given that the multiannual financial framework for 2014-2020 has not yet been established. The margin of manoeuvre available to delegations is therefore greatly reduced.
The Connecting Europe Facility. After agreeing on an overall approach for the trans-European transport network (TEN-T) during their last Council, transport ministers will tackle the matter of its funding. During their meeting on Thursday, they plan to define a partial general approach on the CEF, which provides for €50 billion in funding for all trans-European networks (transport, energy and telecommunications). Transport, however, takes the lion's share with €31.7 billion (of which €10 billion come from the Cohesion Fund - despite the controversy this raises, the Transport Council will not go back on this). Rail and inland navigation projects are obviously eligible for the CEF. Countries with a less well developed road infrastructure, however, do not see things the same way. They are likely to seize the opportunity provided by Thursday's discussions to call for CEF subsidies to cover motorway projects also.
The level of EU co-funding is also a matter that has still to be settled. The EU will contribute to the financing of projects at different rates depending on the sector and the type of action concerned. For example, rates are higher in energy (75% maximum) than in transport (50% maximum). The EU27 are very likely to come back to this during their round table discussion.
Noise pollution - what authority does the EC have? Delegations will also reach a general approach on noise-related operating restrictions at airports with more than 50,000 civil aircraft movements per year. Last year, the Commission suggested than an existing directive be recast as a regulation, within the framework of its legislative package on airports. The Council has greatly reduced the authority requested by the Commission. The Commission's initial proposal that it be given the right to suspend noise-related operating restrictions proposed by a member state has not been accepted. The Council has reduced the Commission's role to simply giving its observations on the subject. However, not all delegations are unanimous in this respect and some (especially the United Kingdom) will, on Thursday, nonetheless argue in favour of the Commission having more authority.
Debates by delegations may also return to the decibel margin emitted by aircraft, in order to determine the degree to which some aircraft can be banned in airports. This above all aims at renewal of the fleet in order to procure less noisy aircraft. The basic criteria will be determined depending on the definition of “marginally compliant aircraft”, which designates a category of aircraft with a noise level that is only slightly lower than the maximum permitted noise levels established by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
Satellite navigation. The Transport Council will also decide the general partial approach to be given to the financial and governance framework proper to the satellite radio-navigation systems (EGNOS, Galileo). Ministers will discuss renewal of the current regulation with a view to the programming period 2014-2020. This determines the activities that must be financed for exploitation of the systems, and shares out the tasks between the European Commission, the European GNSS Surveillance Agency (GSA) and the European Space Agency (ESA). The only point that may give rise to discussion concerns rules on public procurement. Some delegations may push for more generalised use of sub-contracting (i.e. Austria), mainly in favour of SMEs.
Shipping. Finally, European transport ministers will discuss maritime issues. On one hand, this concerns application of the Maritime Labour Convention and, on the other, the Blue Belt pilot project, but no decisions will be taken during the Council.
Miscellaneous. Under miscellaneous, the EU27 will question the Commission once again on the consequences of applying the emissions credit scheme to aviation, which is still causing a stir. Piracy will also be discussed, with follow-up to the conference by the Commission in March this year. Finally, the Commission may call on member states to speed up implementation of the European electronic toll service (EETS). Discussion relates to the use of a single machine, common to all electronic toll systems, in order to facilitate the life of international hauliers. The project, however, is considerably behind schedule. (MD/transl.jl)