Move to strengthen Eurocontrol

Date: 13/06/1996

EU TRANSPORT ministers are expected to give a mixed response to the Commission's ideas on how to improve the Union's often chaotic air traffic management (ATM) system.

Ministers will have their first opportunity to look at Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock's plans for a strengthened Eurocontrol with more streamlined decision-making procedures at their meeting next week.

Kinnock wants the Commission to become a full member of the organisation to ensure a more coordinated EU approach to air traffic control.

But discussions in Coreper (the Committee of permanent representatives) have so far been fairly inconclusive.

Officials have proved reluctant to pre-empt the views of their political masters and some have expressed the view that it would be premature to come to any firm conclusions before work is completed on a number of pieces of research being carried out under the auspices of other European aviation organisations.

Debate has also centred on member states' varying interpretations of the difference between operational ATM functions and regulatory questions. The Commission is determined that there will be a clear separation between the regulator and the provider of the service.

But early discussions have underlined the fact that certain member states, notably Germany and the Netherlands, are much keener on a more centralised approach than the UK and France, who are concerned not to delegate too much sovereignty over running their airspace to outside authorities.

Portugal and Finland are also believed to have concerns, which centre, in the latter's case, on its location at Europe's periphery and the fact that it is not a member of Eurocontrol.

There is, however, a general acceptance that the situation of Europe's airspace is becoming more critical and that action of some sort is desirable.

Some EU governments are still wary about the idea of the Commission becoming a fully-fledged member of a revamped Eurocontrol, doubting that it has the expertise to do so since responsibility for ATM has traditionally resided with the member states.

The principal problem facing attempts to improve the system is the number of overlapping organisations seeking a share of the action. Eurocontrol includes 20 European countries, but not all of the EU's 15 member states are signatories.

At the same time, the 'INSTAR' working group of the 33-member European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) is also working on future policies to improve ATM.

With evidence that 18&percent; of European flights were delayed by more than 15 minutes in 1995 - at a cost to the airlines of up to 2 billion ecu - the Commission proposed three possible scenarios for improving the situation in a White Paper published late last year.

But it expressed doubts about redesigning Eurocontrol to take both operational and regulatory decisions or establishing a new Union agency, preferring an approach “building up from as broad a geographical base as possible” to “increase the scope for regional subgroupings to integrate further their airspace if they so wish”.

The Commission has suggested that a strengthened Eurocontrol, in which it would represent the EU's member states, could possibly coexist alongside a mooted European Aviation Safety Authority.

Although ministers will only give their initial impressions of the initiative when they meet next week, one member state official suggested Kinnock would be “disappointed if there was no general consensus on the way forward by December”.