Brussels, 30/10/2006 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has finally given up on all plans of presenting a proposed revision of the European directive on ground-handling services in the near future. Such a proposal had been in the pipeline until very recently. It is worth noting that access to this market (refuelling, baggage transfer, etc) is governed by directive 96/67/EC, which provides for the liberalisation of the services to be phased in. The Commission has several times proposed greater liberalisation of this sector, but has taken note of the difficulty in "getting consensus on the subject at the time being", as a spokesperson explained. For this reason, it has opted instead to take "time to evaluate the situation" and to analyse "the need for European legislative intervention" in this area. It intends, therefore, to draft a report on the implementation of directive 96/67 on the basis of which it will decide what its next steps will be. This decision came as very welcome news to the European Transport Workers' Federation (ETF), which has always lobbied against the Commission's attempts to liberalise the sector further (see EUROPE 9173). "The ETF is pleased that the Commission is not going to present a revision of the directive on ground-handling at any price. From this point of view, the ETF feels that this is a victory. However, if the Commission has indeed recognised that there are social problems, it has still failed to resolve them", the Federation explains in a press release (our translation), pointing out that it will continue to fight to get, amongst other things, improved safety, better training and certification for staff employed in these services. The Commission hopes to be able to present the results of its report on 6 December, the date on which it was supposed to be presenting a new package of measures in the aviation sector. This package, which was initially to have included three proposed directives, will now be reduced to two proposals: one on safety and efficiency in airports, the other on airport charges. (dt)