Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-11-15-Speech-4-013"
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"en.20011115.2.4-013"2
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".
Madam President, European air transport policy had and still has serious structural weaknesses. The events of 11 September have exacerbated the current situation exponentially. The number of passengers on the main carriers has fallen dramatically and has now bottomed out at 20% lower than in 2000. The airlines recently announced 30,000 redundancies. Two national carriers, Sabena and Swissair, have folded. When Sabena folded, 7,500 people lost their jobs from one day to the next. And we cannot exclude the possibility of further job losses in the industry at European level.
Madam President, at this time of crisis, when it is hard to find answers and a recipe for recovery, we need proper and direct collaboration both between the European institutions and between the European institutions and the social partners before taking further steps.
Last week I met European partners representing all sectors of the air transport industry. Their description was most interesting. The airlines operate in a global village. A global village which has been hit by an earthquake and all its buildings, both large and small, strong and weak, are teetering. So how are we to cope at European level with part of a problem of truly global dimensions? I think that it is important for us to send out a clear message, and I agree completely with Minister Durant here: we shall not be doing the industry any favours if we allow the economic crisis provoked by 11 September to delay decisions to restructure and unify the industry. The main message must be that the proper response is to restructure the airline industry. It is important that we agree that we cannot help the industry with a massive injection of public funds but, at the same time, we must understand that we cannot restructure in a time of crisis without additional economic and social tools. The communication which the European Commission approved on 10 October entitled "The repercussions of the terrorist attacks in the United States on the air transport industry" is an initial reaction to this extraordinary situation and therefore focuses on restoring confidence by planning additional safety measures, coupled with economic measures to support the industry. Of course, I fully agree with the Minister that, because of our institutional configuration and specific policies in the European Union, we are unable, unlike the United States of America, to react directly and support European airlines.
This communication contains a number of important points and measures. The European Commission is examining measures, in the light of state aid rules, on compensating airlines for the damage which they sustained over the four days during which American airspace was closed. This compensation must be granted without exception to all airlines licensed by the Member State. The European Commission will examine various measures, again in the light of state aid rules, on compensation for the cost of additional insurance and continuing state intervention up to the end of this year. The Commission is currently checking a number of medium-term monthly insurance plans on the basis of competition rules and internal market legislation relating to insurance. And it is examining the possibility of a longer-term solution to the problem of insurance within the framework of the European Commission.
Finally, the Commission and the Council of Transport Ministers have called on the Member States to check that third world carriers can provide the same level of insurance cover as that which is going to be required of European airlines. If we are to be able to restructure and stabilise the air transport industry as we must, the problem of ownership and control needs to be resolved now more than ever. The restrictions imposed on airlines by traditional rules of ownership and control in bilateral air transport service agreements make mergers and acquisitions and external investment very difficult, even if the companies are in dire economic straits, which is why the Community desperately needs a dynamic common policy in the external relations sector. The European Commission has been asking the Council for years now for negotiating guidelines on an EU/USA air traffic agreement in order to set the procedure in question in motion. This sort of agreement would benefit our air transport industry.
Finally, given the rules on landing and take-off slots, the Commission takes the view that the situation is highly critical and agrees to propose that airport coordinators allow carriers to keep the slots which they did not use during the summer of 2001 and during the current 2001/2002 winter period for the same programming periods next year. The President-in-Office of the Council has set out the specific problems and the need for a direct European policy and agreement at European level very clearly.
I will not go over them again; instead I shall focus a little longer on the question of the social crisis. As I mentioned earlier, there have already been 30,000 redundancies in the space of a few weeks across all sectors and we are currently conducting a study to see what the repercussions will be on sectors working with the airlines. The analysis of the cause of the redundancies is throwing up many and varied factors. Some are due to the crisis per se, which started last spring. Others are due to a fall in demand. Some to the delay in adjusting capacity in order to correct the ratio between supply and demand after years of strong growth. It is difficult to analyse the causes for all the redundancies immediately, but we shall certainly have to see where we can intervene directly and what part the European Union and the European Commission should play.
First of all, there is a relatively complete legal framework which allows companies to negotiate with their employees in order to find new working models in a bid to keep redundancies to a minimum. British Airways and Alitalia, which have made a great many employees redundant, are already working with and keeping the workers' representatives abreast of developments. But of course legislation cannot stop the current round of redundancies, which is why available Community resources need to be used to deal with the fallout from the crisis.
There is an economic tool at European level – I refer to the European Social Fund – which can be used in three ways: first through the European Employment Strategy, for training and retraining employees made redundant or, often, in order to help them maintain their skills, which they risk losing on such a specialised job market. The second way is by subsidising salaried employees whose jobs are at risk. The problem of small and medium-sized satellite enterprises surrounding the airlines has already been raised. The third way is for local and regional authorities to mobilise action programmes through the Social Fund to deal, for example, with the closure of small airports or local problems caused by redundancies or crises in specific sectors, so that they can be dealt with at regional level.
As far as the financial regulations for the European Social Fund are concerned, it is regulated at European level, but we have the flexibility to redirect funds in times of crisis or in special circumstances. Certain measures for Sabena will be jointly funded by the European Social Fund. These are the legislative and social tools currently available. Of course, one of the most important tools in times of crisis is social dialogue and discussion with the social partners. The European Commission set the European sectoral dialogue on air transport issues in motion following the crisis on 11 September. We have already held meetings with the social partners through the Social Dialogue Committee and it has been decided that a European workshop will be held on 3 December, attended by all the sectors at social partner level and by national delegates from the fifteen Member States, in order to discuss the specific question of the repercussions on employment and the nascent social problems, in a bid to reach a joint agreement on measures which we can take into direct consideration."@en1
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