Brussels, 12/03/2014 (Agence Europe) - MEPs want greater competition in the market for back-up services for air traffic control and in first reading on Wednesday 12 March, they decided on their negotiating position for the Single Sky + package of draft legislation to speed up introduction of the Single European Sky to save time, money and carbon dioxide emissions.
Voluntary liberalisation. MEPs voted through a report by Marian Jean Marinescu (EPP, Romania) - by 489 votes in favour, 154 against and 34 abstentions - recommending opening up air traffic control support services to competition. They say there should be a separation of service providers and the air supervision authority. The services concerned are communications, navigation, surveillance, weather and aeronautical information. This would be a form of voluntary liberalisation because MEPs suggest that the aviation service suppliers organise calls for tender for different support services and choose the most profitable bidder in terms of both quality and finance in order to make the issuing of contracts more transparent. MEPs want the European Commission to carry out an impact assessment by 2016 to examine the potential impact of their recommendations, after which it would be good to consider formal liberalisation rules for the support services recommended by the Commission.
Doubts on the left. The socialists vetoed the idea of compulsory liberalisation, explained their transport spokesman, Saïd El Khadraoui, who said that the organisational costs would be unpredictable and the benefits for aviation questionable. The trade unions are not happy about the European Parliament's vote. They took action against liberalisation at the end of January when the Parliament's transport committee had voted on the issue (see interview in EUROPE 11006). Francois Ballestero, political secretary at the European Transport Workers' Federation, says that hiving off supervision and support services, along with the decoupling of support services, totally ignores the real situation in many member states. He points out that there is no proof that the measure would improve efficiency, and fears it might lead to social unrest.
Boosting the Single European Sky. The report adopted by the MEPs also boosts the independence of national aviation authorities, arguing that they should work more closely together at EU level. The European Commission may set up an independent body, suggests the report, to ensure that the performance targets laid down for the Single European Sky are properly met. MEPs say functional airspace blocs need to be established (no progress has been seen on this to date), thus continuing to follow the European Commission's approach for greater cooperation among service suppliers and airlines to get round national barriers. MEPs gave their endorsement to the suggested division of labour between the European Commission, the Maritime Safety Agency and Eurocontrol, adopting a report on the matter by David-Maria Sassoli (S&D, Italy) by 614 votes in favour to 56 against and 8 abstentions.
MEPs confident. The member states are very hostile to Single Sky 2+ as the previous package has not yet made its impact felt, and are dragging their feet over adopting a common position. Marinescu does not worry about the package being blocked, saying the fact that the Lithuanian and Greek Presidency had not been able to get talks going at Council level demonstrates that the member states are aware that if the talks get going, then agreement will be reached because there are no watertight arguments against Single Sky 2+, as the vote at the Parliament had demonstrated. (MD)