Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-03-07-Speech-1-126"
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"en.20050307.14.1-126"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for what you have said, which has in fact made it even clearer that this proposal from the Commission is to a large degree accepted by this House, and, in the final analysis, wanted by the Council, as it stands. For that reason we should try to complete work, as soon as possible, on a joint directive that can then enter into force.
It is still a characteristic of the European situation that European airspace belongs to those who are most overburdened on a global scale. On the one hand, the high level of traffic occurs, not in a flexible space, but rather in a fragmented European sky; the Member States’ air traffic control systems are still often not mutually compatible. Individual states often retain their own rules, regulations, procedures and performance standards. It was this, just over two years ago, that led the Commission and Parliament, under the slogan of the ‘Single European Sky’, to introduce four packages of measures aimed at doing away, once and for all, with this fragmentation in the sky above Europe.
At the time, my response to all this was rather cautious, for it was unfortunately impossible for the Council to fully implement all the things in this package of measures that Parliament had thought up and asked for. Right now, though, we can be confident that the Member States – at least where the issue of cross-border blocks of airspace is concerned – are evidently prepared to accommodate each other, so that it may well be possible to create a single airspace in Europe within the foreseeable future.
At that time, we also – as you said – put on the agenda more things that we wanted the four regulations to do, it having become apparent from discussions at the time that there were many incompatibilities in the field of air traffic control, whether the hardware, the technology, or even the actual services performed by air traffic controllers. That is all the more astonishing when one considers that many of the preconditions and standards have been made the subject of international rules by the ICAO or by Eurocontrol. Despite that, there exists in almost all the Member States a variety of regulations, with the consequence that individual air traffic controllers’ licences are not compatible. That is why I believe this harmonisation to be urgently necessary, and that there are three things it will enable us to achieve.
Even greater safety is, in any case, worth working towards, and that we will achieve by standardising training and in-service training – with high standards, of course. As you yourself said, one fundamental issue in this is language skills, which are not, at present, guaranteed in every area. You also stressed a second point, that being the issue of who is to provide the training, of how people are to be tested and certified; in future, an independent body will be able to examine their performance in terms of how good the training is and how well it enables the air traffic controllers learning there to do their jobs later on.
A third point, and one that I regard as far from secondary, is that air traffic controllers are, to this day, as a rule barred from pursuing their occupation if they were trained in another Member State.
I regard all three of these points as important, and we should therefore implement them as soon as possible. If I am right in my judgment, this is not a matter of dispute. Such was, in any case, the impression I got from the competent specialist committee, which adopted my report by a large majority. It is also clear from conversations with Members that there is scarcely dissent, except – as always – on minor points with the Council, but I am confident that we will agree on a joint regulation as soon as possible.
I would like to thank all the Members of the House who have contributed helpful proposals, suggestions, or criticisms to this or that aspect of this report, enabling us, overall, to come to a result with which we, together in this House, will be able to take a positive decision."@en1
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