Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-03-Speech-2-041"
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"en.20020903.2.2-041"2
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"Mr President, Madam Vice-President, I would like to start by apologising for my absence from the beginning of the debate, having arrived in Strasbourg only this morning. All the things that have been gone through in detail should actually, I think, give us cause for rejoicing this morning, for we have come a long way, even if it took us three years to do it. The Commission said in its first speech – which was in the summer of 1999 – that a single system of air traffic control is a typically European problem, and one that we must deal with in a European way. The Vice-President then set up the high-level working party. We MEPs were not entirely happy with that, but it was the right thing to do in that she was trying to take on board the concerns of the Member States, which feared ill-founded centralisation. It was therefore right to set up the high-level working party, which submitted its report in 2000. Then, in 2001, the Commissioner set out the proposals for directives. Today, having had good debates in Committee, Parliament is to complete the First Reading stage, which means that we have come a very long way in three years and we should just rejoice in that.
Secondly, some philosophical differences remain, and that is only natural, but let us just give them some thought. I believe that there are sufficient examples to demonstrate that military and civil air traffic control can be integrated and linked up, thus becoming more effective, including in the interests of military security. This antithesis
between military air traffic control and its civil counterpart is something we should overcome. For another thing, we should emphatically reiterate that we are democrats and that democracy means that it is the government, monitored by Parliament, that has to come to a decision. That is why Eurocontrol is, at the end of the day, something which we cannot get into bed with. Eurocontrol is a board of civil servants whose technical expertise and function of providing services in specific sectors we acknowledge, but it is the European Union, the Commission, that must exercise a regulatory function, and be monitored in doing so by us, as it is we who are responsible for regulations enacted by the State. Madam Vice-President, perhaps you could tell us in your response with what success the Council has met. With the high-level working party you gave the Council every opportunity, and yet it was able to conduct negotiations in parallel. Can we be certain that the Council will finalise the dossier with a Common Position by Christmas? Only if it does will we be able to achieve the objective by 2004."@en1
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