Pavel Telička, rapporteur. – Mr President, in the recent past we have not had that many opportunities to praise the European Union for something very concrete and tangible but I must say that the aviation sector has been a success, and it has been a success thanks to the European Union. Imagine air transport twenty years ago, and the possibilities and opportunities for consumers, for us travellers; I think that flying away for a weekend somewhere in Europe at low cost was difficult to imagine. In fact, aviation at that time was for maybe a limited number of people. This is a concrete result of the Single European Sky and the liberalisation that we managed to pursue at European Union level.

Now, increased aviation transport does not mean that we do not face any challenges. In fact, I could name at least some of them: environmental targets, certainly. I do not think anybody would deny today that we need to continue with lowering emissions from air transport. Competition with third countries, digitalisation – it is now more than a year ago that the Commission came with its plan to address these and some other challenges. In fact, it proposed to start negotiations with our main partners, to revise the rules on the European Aviation Safety Agency, and tap EU potential for growth by revising some internal regulations. This is, of course, very welcome and we have already started working on some of it, but, at the same time, we still are still awaiting some of the proposals.

The aviation sector undoubtedly requires heavy investment in a fast-evolving environment. If we want to be efficient, then we need to set a clear vision for this sector, for the investments we make today and in the future. We need to have a vision for the next, even I would say, 50 years. This is, to a certain extent, the purpose of this report, to try to find some practical alternatives for what is not working today and to make some proposals for the future. I am afraid I cannot list all of them today, but at least allow me to make a few points.

First of all, develop a connectivity index based on added value of all modes of transport, in order to rationalise investment and improve the overall resilience of the transport network in Europe, while improving connectivity. This index can help policymakers to take the appropriate decisions without undermining territorial cohesion.

Secondly, a trans-European motorway of the sky, to limit the impact of possible disruptions to where they occur, thereby allowing EU flights to pursue their journey. This was the subject of a bit of a debate in meetings with some of my colleagues. I promised that I would make it clear to the Commission that this completely means that we are putting an EU stamp on a part of the airspace and saying that in this airspace the EU should have priority over national flights. I would like to stress that this is not against national sovereignty and it is not against the right to strike. On the contrary, this is only about recalling some obligations that we should have towards the European Union.

I will be very brief on the European Aviation model. We need to stop thinking that we will solve problems of competition with our partners by putting an end to competition. This is only going to be detrimental to passengers. Competition is an opportunity for our airlines. We need to provide them with the right safeguards, of course, and this is why the European Parliament will be following closely the negotiations on air agreements. I find intermodality a very important element of this report because quite often when we talk specifically about aviation as a transport mode, we tend to take it separately from other modes of transport.

Finally, on security, there is no need to recall why this is a major concern now. Of course, we need better coordination of EU intelligence and we should make sure we make the most up to date technology equipment, but we should also be careful not to overburden passengers. That is why the Commission is invited to consider the creation of an EU pre-check system where passengers could voluntarily register in order to go through smooth security checks once at the airport. There are many more [topics] in the draft aviation strategy and maybe we will have an opportunity to debate them today.