Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-07-02-Speech-1-087"
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let us agree on one first thing: airports are a source of wealth and development. Otherwise, I wonder how you got here if you did not fly. This is clear: airports are necessary. What we clearly have to do now is create fewer problems for the surrounding community, but we also have to remember that the community often builds up around the airport because of the activity of that very airport, because of the economic development it generates and the infrastructures which accompany it. We have to see things fairly.
The second issue is that of the responsibilities of the local authorities. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a question of subsidiarity. Each country has its own rules and I am not going to tell the countries what they have to do on this issue.
The third issue concerns the hushkits
regulation, which was introduced and adopted in 1998 by Parliament together with the Council, unanimously. Ladies and gentlemen, if at any point I present or propose to you a modification of this regulation, it will be to replace it with something which is even better for the communities surrounding airports. It will be in order to make improvements. Furthermore, to do so in a way which does not lead us to controversy and international dispute as has been the case with the current regulation. Of course, the Commission, the Community as such, is not part of the International Civil Aviation Organisation but rather it is the Member States who are members. We have a kind of secondary position in one corner. That is the current situation.
The regulation has been condemned by the United States in accordance with Article 84 and we succeeded in postponing the decision at the last meeting of the ICAO Council a week ago and leave until November, that is until after the assembly, the decision on whether the complaint from the United States against our
regulation is justified. We will have to wait and see the result. I would like, together with the United States, the developing countries and the other countries which make up the ICAO, to agree on regulations which improve the characteristics of aircraft and bring about the modernisation of the fleets of the different countries as soon as possible.
There is another issue, highlighted by Mr Sterckx, Mrs Lucas and others as well such as Mr Blokland and Mr Hatzidakis and that is the renewal of the fleets. There are two different aspects to this. Firstly, thanks to our regulation, we have managed to move things ahead within the ICAO. That is why I said before that we have already achieved positive results. There is going to be a Chapter 4 with a reduction of 10 decibels. There is not going to be an agreement on phasing-out because, until Chapter 4 enters into force, it cannot take place, as happened before with Chapters 2 and 3. That is to say that it will be at the 2004 assembly, surely, when we can agree dates for abandoning the Chapter 3 aircraft. We have agreed that the methodologies and evaluation systems for a reclassification of aircraft are a key issue. We must move beyond the current situation, with Chapter 2 aircraft reclassified as Chapter 3, which meet the criteria of this last chapter only under certain flight regulations and furthermore in a very restricted way, which means that, in other circumstances, they greatly exceed those noise levels and do not comply with the rules of Chapter 3.
That is the origin of our complaint about hushkits. Ladies and gentlemen, we are seeking some points of agreement with the United States and with certain other countries, and I believe that the best thing is for us to reach an agreement amongst all of us. Of course, I am going to defend the positions of the 15 countries of the European Union. However, I would like to remind you of the situation a year ago, when the pressure – which is now less, amongst other things because we are negotiating and it seems that we are reaching agreement on some points – from the United States was much greater and there were threats of trade reprisals against a number of countries. This pressure came from various countries, delegations of countries and also various representatives in this House. I do not want to find myself in that kind of situation again, because it was clearly me who was taking the strain. What I want is to reach an agreement with the United States which will allow us to achieve the objective we all share of reducing the noise levels around our airports. That is what I am working on, but I am also seeking agreements with other countries, because the ICAO does not only include the 15 countries of the Union but also the United States and a number of other countries from other parts of the world which have rather different interests from ours and with whom we have to reach agreements.
A further two issues have been referred to: the issue of competition between airports, the noisiest ones and the quietest ones. That is why we are proposing to take decisions on individual airports on a case by case basis, within a global framework in which the different levels of restriction of operations and noise-levels are reduced to two, three or four in accordance with the specific areas of sensitivity of the surrounding community. There are certain geographic conditions – I am thinking, for example, of Strasbourg airport, where there is a problem of boxing-in between mountains and phenomena of echoes are produced which aggravate noise problems – and other issues which justify the adaptations and specific measures for protection of these areas. We are suggesting that decisions be taken individually, which is what the United States is calling for, or that a general regional geographical approximation be carried out, as we are requesting. The intermediate solution which we are negotiating with them is a geographical framework with a maximum of 3 or 4 levels of sensitivity. A situation without special limitations and another two or three levels of specific operational restrictions.
Mr President, I will end by thanking all the speakers and thanking you for your support, with the hope that it might be possible for a delegation from Parliament to participate in the ICAO, alongside us. I believe that there may be a common interest in incorporating a parliamentary delegation into the debates, and we will have to see how we could articulate it according to what happens in other types of negotiations. It has been pointed out by one speaker that air transport has its limits. Ladies and gentlemen, everything has its limits. We all know that airspace is limited, capacities are limited, but I believe that, as things stand, we have not yet reached that point. What we have to do is achieve better management of all resources, specifically in relation to these transport limits, not just in the case of air transport but of transport in general, with growth possibilities within a sustainable development. I hope that, if things go well and we get through the internal discussions within the Commission, in the coming weeks we will be able to begin to discuss the White Paper on transport where, amongst other things, we propose the high-speed train as an alternative to air transport for journeys of less than 800 or 900 kilometres."@en1
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