RECOMMENDATION FOR SECOND READING on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the safety of third countries aircraft using community airports
(8478/1/2003 – C5‑0278/2003 – 2002/0014(COD))
11 September 2003 - ***II
Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism
Rapporteur: Nelly Maes
PROCEDURAL PAGE
At the sitting of 3 September 2002 Parliament adopted its position at first reading on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on the safety of third countries aircraft using community airports (COM(2002) 8 – 2002/0014 (COD)).
At the sitting of 19 June 2003 the President of Parliament announced that the common position had been received and referred to the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism (8478/1/2003 – C5‑0278/2003).
The committee had appointed Nelly Maes rapporteur at its meeting of 22 January 2002.
It considered the common position and draft recommendation for second reading at its meeting of 9/10 September 2003.
At this meeting it adopted the draft legislative resolution by 43 votes with 1 abstention.
The following were present for the vote: Paolo Costa, chairman; Rijk van Dam and Gilles Savary, vice-chairmen; Nelly Maes, rapporteur; Rolf Berend, Philip Charles Bradbourn, Giorgio Calò (for Enrique Monsonís Domingo, pursuant to Rule 153(2)), Felipe Camisón Asensio, Luigi Cocilovo, Christine de Veyrac, Den Dover (for Dana Rosemary Scallon), Alain Esclopé, Giovanni Claudio Fava, Markus Ferber (for Renate Sommer), Juan Manuel Ferrández Lezaun (for Camilo Nogueira Román), Jacqueline Foster, Mathieu J.H. Grosch, Konstantinos Hatzidakis, Juan de Dios Izquierdo Collado, Georg Jarzembowski, Dieter-Lebrecht Koch, Giorgio Lisi, Sérgio Marques, Emmanouil Mastorakis, Erik Meijer, Rosa Miguélez Ramos, Francesco Musotto, James Nicholson, Peter Pex, Wilhelm Ernst Piecyk, Giovanni Pittella (for Danielle Darras), Samuli Pohjamo, Bernard Poignant, José Javier Pomés Ruiz, Alonso José Puerta, Reinhard Rack, Carlos Ripoll y Martínez de Bedoya, Ingo Schmitt, Elisabeth Schroedter (for Jan Dhaene), Brian Simpson, Dirk Sterckx, Ulrich Stockmann, Margie Sudre, Ari Vatanen, Mark Francis Watts.
The recommendation for second reading was tabled on 11 September 2003.
DRAFT EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT LEGISLATIVE RESOLUTION
on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the safety of third countries aircraft using community airports
(8478/1/2003 – C5‑0278/2003 – 2002/0014(COD))
(Codecision procedure: second reading)
The European Parliament,
– having regard to the Council common position (8478/1/2003 - C5‑0278/2003),
– having regard to its position at first reading[1] on the Commission proposal to Parliament and the Council (COM(2002) 8[2]),
– having regard to the Commission's amended proposal (COM(2002) 664[3]),
– having regard to Article 251(2) of the EC Treaty,
– having regard to Rule 80 of its Rules of Procedure,
– having regard to the recommendation for second reading of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism (A5‑0301/2003),
1. Amends the common position as follows;
2. Instructs its President to forward its position to the Council and Commission.
| Council common position | Amendments by Parliament |
| Amendment 1 Article 5, paragraph 2 | |
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2. All standard reports referred to in Article 3 and the ramp inspection reports referred to in Article 4(4) shall be made available without delay to the Commission and, at their request, to the competent authorities of the Member States. |
2. All standard reports referred to in Article 3 and the ramp inspection reports referred to in Article 4(4) shall be made available without delay to the European Air Safety Agency (EASA), the Commission and, at their request, to the competent authorities of the Member States. |
| Amendment 2 Article 6(2) | |
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2. The Commission shall publish yearly an aggregated information report available to the public containing an analysis of the information received in accordance with Article 5. In the analysis, the source of that information shall be disidentified. |
2. The Commission shall publish yearly an aggregated information report available to the public and the industry stakeholders containing an analysis of all information received in accordance with Article 5. That analysis shall be simple, easy to understand and open to only one interpretation, and shall indicate whether particular aircraft-types, operators or countries of registration or seat are associated with an increased safety risk to air-travellers. In the analysis, the source of that information shall be disidentified. |
Justification The Common Position replaces the half-yearly requirement on Member States to provide information with an annual and less specific requirement on the Commission to do so, without taking the relevant amendments by the European Parliament into account. It is important for the public to be guaranteed that a report with aggregated data will also contain information relevant to air-travellers and other concerned parties. Partly based on AM 18 (first reading). | |
| Amendment 3 Article 9, letter b) | |
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(b) the Commission, acting in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 10(3), may issue a recommendation to the other Member States to extend the measures notified under (a) to the airports located in their respective territories. |
(b) the Commission, acting in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 10(3), may issue such recommendations and take such actions as it considers necessary; it may, moreover, extend the measures set out under (a) to the whole Community. |
Justification The Council is weakening the original Commission version by restricting the Commission's margin of manoeuvre to the right to an opinion. The objective of a genuinely harmonised approach to air-traffic safety throughout the Union consequently will not be achieved. The original approach (under which the Member States also are closely involved through a committee) should thus also be retained. | |
| Amendment 4 Article 11, subparagraph 1 | |
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Member States shall bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this Directive by ..... *. They shall forthwith inform the Commission thereof. |
Member States shall bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this Directive by ..... *. They shall forthwith inform the Commission thereof. |
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Justification Prompt introduction of this directive is of great importance to air-safety and fair competition. The legislative proposal dates originally from 1997. Too much time has already been lost owing to the Gibraltar dispute and further delay in the Council. The implementation deadline in the Commission proposal consequently should be maintained. | |
| Amendment 5 Article 13 | |
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By ...... * the Commission shall draw up a report on the application of the Directive, and in particular on Article 9, which, inter alia, takes into account developments in the Community and in international fora. The report may be accompanied by proposals for an amendment of this Directive |
By ...... * the Commission shall submit a report to the European Parliament and the Council on the application of the Directive, and in particular on Article 9, which, inter alia, takes into account developments in the Community and in international fora. The report may be accompanied by proposals for an amendment of this Directive |
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Justification It is important for the Commission and the Council to be in a position to determine as soon as possible after expiry of the final implementation deadline whether the directive is being implemented appropriately. To be sure that enough practical experience is acquired with the directive, the deadline proposed by the Council in this amendment is being shortened, not to 2 years, as in the original Commission proposal, but to 4 years. Partly based on AM 22 (first reading). | |
EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
The proposal for a directive
The ICAO's European branch, the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC), has since 1996 been applying the so-called 'SAFA-procedure' (Safety Assessment of Foreign Aircraft) as a means of systematically and transparently monitoring aircraft that are suspected of posing a risk to aviation safety. Most European Union Member States (all of them ECAC members) have used the SAFA procedure in recent years in conducting inspections.
The proposal for a directive seeks to formalise the SAFA-procedure within the Community. Efforts to harmonise provisions and procedures governing ramp inspections are aimed primarily at ensuring safety. Accident figures vary widely across different regions and continents. Airlines based in Africa, Asia and South and Central America have accident rates at least twice as high as the world average. Western Europe and Australia have the lowest accident rates, whereas Eastern European operators have a very high rate, nearly 50 times higher than in Western Europe. The figures also show that Western-built aircraft are significantly safer than Eastern-built ones. The fatal accident rate per million flights is, for example, 0.11 in Western Europe, but in Russia rises to 2.68 (for the period 1994-1998).
The proposal also seeks to counteract distortions of competition in a sector that has been extensively liberalised in recent years. Equal implementation of inspection procedures will at all events prevent third-country aircraft from diverting to different airports within the Union as a way of evading checks. A coordinated approach combined with information exchanges will make it easier to identify potential aircraft defects at an early stage.
The purpose of the directive is to help to increase air-travel safety by ensuring that:
- ∙More specifically targeted information is collected and disseminated to ensure that sufficient supporting evidence is available for taking decisions necessary to guarantee safety;
- ∙Crews and (the operation of) third-country aircraft will be inspected where there are grounds for suspecting that international safety standards are not being complied with;
- ∙Appropriate action will be taken to rectify any shortcomings identified;
- ∙Aircraft can be grounded where that is necessary to ensure safety
The European Commission had submitted a proposal for a directive on the safety of third-country aircraft using Community airports as long ago as 1997. The European Parliament adopted its resolution at second-reading (A4-0295/1998) on 15 September 1998. But because the Council was unable, as a consequence of a dispute over the status of Gibraltar, to take a decision within the stipulated time, the Commission was obliged to withdraw its proposal. When a solution had been found to the disagreement over Gibraltar, the Commission resubmitted its proposal. The views already expressed by Parliament and the Council have been taken into account in the proposal.
European Parliament First reading
The European Parliament supported the Commission proposal as a whole, and at first reading in September 2002 adopted nineteen amendments. These were intended both to clarify and firm up the text, and to add certain new points, in particular:
- ∙Extending the scope of the directive in order to guarantee that the same safety level will be guaranteed for aircraft from within the Union;
- ∙Clarifying the part played by the European Civil Aviation Agency in implementing and enforcing the directive;
- ∙Committing Member States to including complaints from those living in the vicinity of airports as part of information-gathering;
- ∙Guarantees of effective dissemination of information to the public on the safety situation and safety risks;
- ∙Appeal to the Commission to assist third countries with enabling their safety provisions and staff qualifications to comply with Community standards.
The Commission adopted the letter or spirit of most of Parliament's proposed changes in an amended proposal (COM(2002) 664).
The Council's common position
The Council, in its common position, made a few substantive and a good many drafting amendments to the Commission proposal. A number of those amendments serve the same purpose as amendments tabled by Parliament. A considerable number of EP amendments were, however, not adopted or adopted with major changes. In addition, a number of the changes proposed by the Council to the Commission version depart, in your rapporteur's view, from the original proposal.
Your rapporteur considers it of the greatest importance to safety and fair competition for this provision to enter into force promptly, not least in view of the years of delay that have already occurred. She is therefore confining herself at second reading to tabling amendments on only four items in order to reach agreement between the institutions quickly. Those amendments are mainly intended to reverse the weakening of the text by the Council on a number of points that are crucial to Parliament, viz:
Providing information to the public (Amendment 2)
The Common Position replaces the half-yearly requirement on Member States to provide information to the public with an annual and less specific requirement on the Commission to do so, without taking the relevant amendments by the European Parliament into account. In itself, your rapporteur considers replacing a national by a Community requirement to provide information as acceptable. Reporting by the Commission can even lead to improved comparability and thus to a better overview of data.
It is, however, important for the public to be guaranteed that a report with aggregated data will also contain information relevant to air-travellers and other concerned parties. Members of the public must be able clearly to determine from the report what aircraft-types, operators or countries of registration or seat are associated with a possible increased safety risk to air-travellers. Guarantees to that effect are incompletely laid down in the common position. The Council has replaced the clear list of data about which the public should be informed (Article 7 of the Commission proposal) with an obscure sequence of articles cross-referenced to each other (in particular Articles 6, 5, 3, Annex I in the common position). Even if all the cross-references are followed up, the expected clarity as to the content of the report is not achieved. Instead of making it clear what information matters to the public, the Council version puts the emphasis on the protection of information, the importance of aggregating data and disidentifying sources.
Community measures against unsafe aircraft (Amendment 3)
Under the original Commission proposal the Commission could extend a measure taken by one Member State against an airline company to the whole Community. In order to do so, the Commission first had to consult a committee of experts from the Member States. That committee or the Council itself could oppose such action by the Commission by qualified majority. The Council thus certainly was far from surrendering all its powers.
In the version proposed by the Council the Commission's margin of manoeuvre is now confined to a right of opinion. Member States can now afford to ignore the opinions issued by the Commission. There is consequently no real harmonisation. That falls well short of the declared purpose of the directive of securing a uniformly stringent approach to unsafe aircraft throughout the Union.
The amendment restores the original Commission version.
Prompt implementation and monitoring of the directive (Amendments 4 and 5 )
Prompt implementation of this directive is in the interests of civil aviation safety and fair competition. The proposal dates back, as stated, to 1997. Following publication of the new Commission proposal and resolution of the Gibraltar conflict, it took the Council a further year and a half to submit a common position to the EP. In short: there can be no more time to lose. All Member States are, moreover, required to meet their international commitments to adopt the SAFA procedure, which does not leave much time to implement the directive. The implementation deadline in the original Commission proposal consequently should be reinstated.
It is thus essential for the Commission and the Council to be in a position to determine as soon as possible after expiry of the final implementation deadline whether the directive is being implemented appropriately. In order to reach a compromise with the Council, and to ensure that enough practical experience is acquired with the directive, the deadline of 5 years proposed by the Council is being shortened by this amendment, not to 2 years, as in the original Commission proposal, but to 4 years.