Brussels, 03/12/2014 (Agence Europe) - The Italian presidency has managed to bypass the question of Gibraltar Airport and subsequently facilitate a political agreement of principle (general approach) on reform of the European Single Sky (ESS 2+) at the Transport Council on Wednesday 3 December.
This legislative package has seen the level of European Commission ambitions reduced but the agreement is expected to help speed up improvements to air traffic management in Europe.
Gibraltar left pending. The United Kingdom, however, was unable to approve the text, which leaves the question of the airport on the Rock of Gibraltar, which has pitted the United Kingdom against Spain, left pending. The text approved therefore mentions, as a footnote, the fact that the Gibraltar question will depend on discussions between the United Kingdom and Spain on the subject succeeding. The Italian Minister for Transport, Maurizio Lupi, explained “this is a neutral solution that does not say either of the delegations is right”. The Italian presidency wanted to grant the two countries more time to settle the territorial dispute, which would probably be at a foreign affairs ministers or even head of state level.
This initiative means avoiding having to compromise the progress made in the dossier, so that the presidency of the Council has been able to reach a compromise after the difficult negotiations between the member states.
Liberalisation optional. The political agreement of principle has revised the European Commission demands downwards, mainly with regard to liberalisation of air traffic management support services (communications, weather forecast services and navigation et cetera.). Member states will remain free to decide whether to open up the services to competition. Service providers will therefore not have to unbundle support services from their own air traffic management services.
The Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc, however, reiterated the need to “rationalise the provision of services, which is not totally efficient” but did not express any reservations about the approach adopted by ministers. Ministers did agree, however, to an independent study being carried out on the need to bring all these support service providers under Eurocontrol's supervision or group of air management service providers.
The ministerial agreement also guarantees the independence of national supervisory authorities, which will have to be unbundled, in terms of management, decision-making and hierarchy, from that of the service providers.
The performance related system consists of attainable targets in terms of security, cost efficiency, environment and capacity. It has been made more flexible and contains a dialogue mechanism to be used for the different stakeholders. Ministers also introduce greater flexibility into the way in which the Functional Airspace Blocks (FABs) are introduced and which have been very much delayed by the member states. It is possible that they will submit an operational plan to the European Commission outlining the action they intend to take to introduce these FABs. They are also counting on developing industrial partnership support.
A second chapter in the package involves amendments for focusing the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) regulation on the challenges relating to interoperability included in the European Single Sky rules and decentralisation of the European agencies. Amendments to EASA's name and the way it is funded will be tackled separately during the comprehensive review of the regulation expected next year.
Opening negotiations. Bulc acknowledged that the Commission objectives had been somewhat reduced but said that she was ready to listen and make compromises. This is why she appeared, however, less enthusiastic about an agreement being obtained and said “we have laid down a few of the foundations for the single area”. The European Parliament already has a position on this issue (EUROPE 11037) and inter-institutional trilogue negotiations can now begin. (MD)