Strasbourg, 07/07/2006 (Agence Europe) - It will have taken six years for the Council and European Parliament to close the dossier on harmonisation of technical rules and administrative procedures in civil aviation. With the adoption, on 5 July, of the report by German Social Democrat Ulrich Stockmann on the common Council position concerning the proposal for a regulation (codecision, second reading), the Parliament approved a package of compromise amendments guaranteeing that adoption of the regulation in question will not entail a reduction in security in Member States that have a more demanding legislation. An informal trilogue took place end June, and the Council should now approve the Parliament amendments without difficulty and formally adopt the regulation, in principle during September.
Anxious to allow Member States to have national security norms that are higher than those set out in the regulation if they so wish, the Parliament has approved a “non-regression clause” stipulating that Member States are authorised to keep their legislation containing provisions that are stricter than those set out in the present regulation. The Parliament also calls for the European Air Safety Agency (EASA) to carry out a scientific and medical evaluation of the provisions of the regulation on flight and on duty time limits and rest time requirements (Annex III sub-part Q) two years after the regulation takes effect (in the common position, the Council had suggested three years), and also, where necessary, on the provisions concerning the flight deck cabin crew (Annex III, sub-party O). In the light of the results of the assessment, the Commission must develop and rapidly submit provisions for amending the relevant technical provisions, the Parliament also states. In a whereas, the EP consider that it will be appropriate to facilitate the free movement of cabin personnel within the Community in order to continue along the road toward harmonisation in the training of flight deck cabin personnel, and again examining the possibility of further harmonisation of cabin crew qualifications.
In 2000, the Commission had presented this proposal for a regulation in the aim of establishing operational norms applicable to air transport (EU-OPS rules), including on flight and rest time for crew members (FTL, Flight Time Limitations). Unable to reach an agreement on the proposal as a whole, the Transport Council of December 2004 agreed on flight and rest time of crew members as well as on provisions relating to cabin personnel, leaving it up to the Commission to present a new proposal on other points (see EUROPE 8846). It was in order to prevent this procedure from dragging along and to reach an agreement on the proposal in second reading, that the Council and Parliament found time for an informal trilogue in June.