Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-04-20-Speech-2-011"
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"en.20100420.3.2-011"2
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"Mr President, as everyone knows, air transport is absolutely strategic in nature. It affects the public, their daily lives and their right to free movement – which is a fundamental right – and it undoubtedly has a decisive effect on economic activity.
Safety has therefore been maintained as the priority. There is no room for compromise on this, as Commissioner Kallas said – he said so this weekend – and therefore, there is an area in which there is a ban, an agreement for an absolute ban on flights. We will gain a much more precise idea of the real risk from all of the data that is going to be used by Eurocontrol, not only from London, but from the tests that are being carried out with test aircraft without passengers, as well as data from the national authorities, from the manufacturers of aeroplane engine parts and from the European Aviation Safety Agency in Cologne. All of this data will have to be taken into account when establishing the zones agreed yesterday by the Transport Ministers at the extraordinary Council meeting called by the Spanish Presidency.
It is therefore an evolving, more dynamic and more precise model than the one being used so far, based, first of all, on scientific data, secondly, on a technical decision by Eurocontrol, and finally, on a decision by the Member States on the intermediate zone, on which they have to be coordinated.
In turn, Mr President, the Council of Transport Ministers adopted a very clear position yesterday, saying to the Member States that they should do everything they can to make as many alternative methods of transport available to the public as possible so as to resolve the very serious situations affecting the mobility of European citizens and other citizens. They have also tackled the extremely significant economic consequences of this situation – as Commissioner Kallas will explain – in a taskforce, a group led by the Vice-President of the Commission, Commissioner Kallas, Commissioner Almunia and Commissioner Rehn, which is going to submit a report next week on all the economic aspects. Finally, there will be another Transport Ministers’ Council as soon as possible to discuss all of these issues.
Therefore, Mr President, a decision has been made that means giving a European perspective and a coordinated European approach to what is happening, based on safety and the need to be as effective and precise as possible when making a decision on flights, while protecting citizens’ rights. I am very pleased, Mr President, Mr Buzek, that the European Parliament has proposed a detailed debate on this issue. In fact, this debate means that you clearly have the reflexes to act immediately, as is fitting for the House that represents the peoples of Europe, and that you can consider on a longer-term basis what action needs to be taken in response to this entirely unforeseen, completely new crisis, which has had extraordinary and extremely serious effects on the lives of European citizens.
When there are problems with air transport, when there are disruptions affecting more than one country, the strategic nature of air transport becomes even more evident, and the damage is greater.
When, as in this case, it affects the majority of European Union Member States, it becomes an extremely serious problem, indeed a crisis. It is, of course, an unexpected and unprecedented crisis that must be tackled in the appropriate manner. Moreover, we have the paradox that we are dealing with a subject on which the European Union as such does not have many powers, fewer, in fact, than it has on other matters, but even so, it has to react, it has to act.
In this air traffic crisis in Europe, two circumstances have arisen at the same time: the maximum level of seriousness – the crisis has been very serious – but also a low level of immediate legal capacity on the part of the European Union to act in this area. This is therefore a situation in which it is not easy to act from a European Union perspective. Despite that, we have acted and reacted.
That brings me to the second part of my statement: what action has been taken in this case. Firstly, the Member States, the airport authorities, applied the existing protocol, taking into account the map showing the influence of the volcanic ash drawn up by the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre in London. This was a scientific assessment, and based on that, it was considered that that airspace should be automatically restricted for flights. That is what was done first, and it was done with the utmost caution and safety and the minimum risk, on the basis of that first contribution from Eurocontrol, which, in turn, was based on what was said by the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre in London, which was established years ago.
Naturally, however, this situation clearly extended beyond the Member States and therefore, the European Union and its institutions set to work right from the very beginning. More specifically, in recent days, there was a series of technical meetings that resulted in the political decision reached yesterday by the Transport Ministers.
Throughout the weekend, the Council, the Spanish Presidency, the Commission – most particularly Commissioner Kallas, whom I thank for his willingness and hard work throughout this period – and Eurocontrol have been working to prepare a much more precise, much more appropriate reaction to what was already becoming a more lasting crisis, which was beginning to have very serious effects on the whole of the European Union and beyond.
The work done over the last few days produced the recommendation by Eurocontrol, which was unanimously adopted, firstly at the meeting held yesterday in Brussels between Eurocontrol, the Commission, the Council, the airport authorities, air traffic organisations and all the sectors concerned, regarding the need for Eurocontrol to establish three zones affected by the volcano starting from today. The first zone would be the zone of greatest ash density, in which there would be an absolute restriction, an absolute ban on flights; the second zone would be the opposite, a zone in which no kind of ash is present at all and is therefore unrestricted for flights; and the third would be an intermediate zone in which there is low ash density, which would therefore allow flights without any risk. The national authorities would have to examine this zone in a coordinated manner, starting from today, in light of the data that Eurocontrol supplies daily and constantly, every six hours, in order to decide whether they need to establish air corridors or zones in which flights would be permitted.
This technical recommendation, which came from and was proposed by Eurocontrol, was unanimously adopted yesterday by the 27 governments of the European Union, therefore giving it a European focus and a European approach to what is needed at the moment. In other words, the European Union makes a decision and therefore proposes that the Member States act in that way. There was a unanimous agreement between the European governments and the Commission, along with the proposal made by Eurocontrol, to act in that way."@en1
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