Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-05-18-Speech-2-569"
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"en.20100518.37.2-569"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, we have already held a debate about the ash cloud and the associated problems for aviation in the immediate aftermath of the volcanic eruption.
We observed various things in this crisis. We observed, for one thing, that aviation really is essential for the transport sector, as it is not only passengers that get stranded, but goods, too, can be left untransported. In Germany, for example, BMW had some production bottlenecks due to not receiving deliveries. We observed that we need every mode of transport, including aviation. For another thing, we observed that it is a significant crisis for the airlines if it is not possible to fly for several days. A five-day break, the airlines said, could be coped with. A 20-day break, however, could perhaps have caused a collapse of the entire industry lasting quite some time. We need not talk about compensation just yet, the airlines themselves said, but if it had lasted longer, that would have been necessary.
Passenger rights have been subject to varying comments from different speakers. They have now put to the test the rule that, in such extraordinary cases, too, everything can be done for passengers in relation to information, compensation and recompense to the extent that they need it and in the way we originally laid it down here.
There are still two subjects in particular that I would like to go into. The first is the Single European Sky. We do not have a single European airspace, and that is something that was painfully absent this time, too. A single European airspace clearly would not have prevented the volcanic eruption, we all know that, but we would certainly have been better able to bring about the smooth evacuation of passengers. We have appointed a Functional Airspace Blocks (FAB) coordinator, of course. He is now starting work, and we all very much hope that his work will relatively soon be able to lead to a single European airspace. The question is also how long will it take until we actually achieve this? Perhaps you are not in a position to answer that precisely.
We have also discussed before whether better European coordination of the railway sector – something that we have long been wanting and, on paper, have long had – could have helped passengers to get home more quickly. In this regard, too, we observed quite clearly where our difficulties lie.
I will now move on to my final question. Do we have good crisis management arrangements for cases like this? We have the institute in London, which is actually there to provide information when there are earthquakes. It also deals with volcanic eruptions as a secondary responsibility. Now it has been producing computer projections based on second-hand data, and it has been criticised for that. What can we learn from other parts of the world where volcano eruptions are more common, such as the United States, Indonesia and others? What other measurements do they take? According to my information, they are better prepared for such situations. Perhaps we had not planned for this in Europe, but we do then have to learn the resultant lessons. We are a hi-tech location, we have a lot of opportunities, and researchers in Germany, for example, have called for a specialised monitoring network for those aerosols, those minuscule items, that volcanic ash contains. What else do you think that we can do? How can we improve our technologies in the interests of aviation, the people and goods?"@en1
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