St Malo, 26/09/2013 (Agence Europe) - The blade is about to fall on the countries that are dragging their feet when it comes to implementation of the Functional Airspace Blocks (FABs). The European Commission opened infringement proceedings against Italy, Cyprus and Greece in this regard on Thursday, 26 September, so that these three countries “urgently” clarify the measures they have taken to introduce their respective FABs, as they had made a commitment to do so in 2004 and which they should have completed by the end of 2012. The Commission has therefore sent them a letter of formal notice to obtain this information in respect of the legislation on the Single European Sky (SES), particularly regulation (EC) No. 550/2004 and regulation (EC) No. 549/2004 for introducing the FABs. The Single European Sky includes nine blocks (none of which have completely been introduced) in an effort to improve their traffic management efficiency (for saving time, money and reducing CO2 emissions).
The European Commissioner for Transport, Siim Kallas warned that, “this legal action should send a strong political message about our determination to push through the reforms to Europe's air traffic control…Our airlines and their passengers have had to endure more than ten years of reduced services and missed deadlines on the route to a Single European Sky. We cannot afford to continue this way”. This is also this reason why last July he proposed the Single Sky Package 2+ to tackle this question but which was given a cold reception by member states.
Other infringement procedures are also expected to begin against several other countries that are experiencing considerable delays in the elaboration of the FABs, and these procedures will be even stricter given that no progress has been observed, explained the Commission. (MD/transl.fl)