Brussels, 11/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - Three months after the New York and Washington attacks, the Transport Council has reached political agreement on the draft regulation strengthening security in European airports. The regulation transposes into EU law the air security recommendations made by the ECAC (European Civil Aviation Conference) and will come into force twenty days after its publication in the Official Journal for baggage and passenger checks and on 1 January 2003 for freight and mail. On the basis of the compromise agreement struck at the Council, the Member States will have to adopt a national security programme in the three months following the regulation's coming into force, and introduce a quality control system within 6 months. Several Member States (Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Luxembourg and Finland) would have preferred more time to implement national programmes, but finally came round to the compromise position.
In order to speed through the adoption of the text, the United Kingdom and Spain agreed to formally suspend the application of the legislation to Gibraltar Airport - Gibraltar protested about this, because the regulation even applies to tiny EU airports and should therefore also apply to Gibraltar. A Community source stressed that the Gibraltar Airport's management would be applying similar measures in any case.
The Council chose a compromise between France's position (wanting guarantees for the confidentiality of the information that is gathered) and Sweden (insisting on transparency and citizens' access to documents), whereby inspection reports can be made public with the relevant Member State's consent.
The Council called on the Commission to present new proposals based on the ad hoc group's report (the group was set up after 11 September to identify the necessary additional security measures). In its report, the group recommends measures to be taken urgently: 1) locking cockpit doors; 2) improving the sharing of information between civil and military authorities; 3) a coordination system between the Community, the ECAC and the International Civil Aviation Organisation to carry out external audits of security measures; 4) including security in the 6th framework research programme; and 5) launching consultations with the United States for the adoption of common security measures. In the longer-term, the group recommends that it continues its work on issues that have not yet been agreed upon by the Member State experts, such as the legal impact of checking the past history of people having access to restricted areas of airports, staff training and the availability of radio frequencies for ground to air communications. The group will unveil a second report in April 2002.