Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-06-14-Speech-3-340"
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"en.20060614.20.3-340"2
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".
Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have been debating air safety for a long time, and quite rightly too; it is hardly surprising that it was necessary to update it in view, not only of what happened on 11 September 2001, but also of our experience of other terrorist acts on board aircraft.
We had a major argument about how this was to be funded, that being crucial when it comes to making things safe, only then to ask oneself who is meant to come up with the necessary money.
The whole committee, and all the Members of this House, would, however, have found it very helpful if we, at the very outset of the debate, had had sight of the Commission’s documents on a process reviewing the measures taken in response to 11 September 2001; that would certainly have made our discussions more straightforward and afforded us many more options.
It does, nevertheless, make sense to take joint basic measures in matters of security. That is in any case more transparent than confrontation between different nations’ highly divergent ways of dealing with this, which may – and I deliberately say ‘may’, although many are probably aware of what I am talking about – be capable of being misused to distort competition or exclude certain practices.
When it comes to the financial arrangements, there is a matter pertaining to the future that we have to address, and Mr El Khadroui has already mentioned it: we cannot stop at air transport in debating who is to take in hand security measures in connection with large-scale transport infrastructures. We also have to devise a financial measure that gives fair treatment to all means of transport in order not, from the very start, to give preferential treatment to certain of them in the funding of security measures or when it comes to the extent to which they are to be funded through the sale of tickets, by the taxpayer, by the airlines or by other bodies.
This is where the European public have every right to expect transparency; that is a core requirement.
Further to what Mr Matsakis had to say on the subject, I think the debate on the need to bar certain passengers is perfectly justified. Passengers under the influence of alcohol are one aspect of this, but the original effect of this proposal would have been to limit it to asylum seekers being sent home or to prisoners under escort. The extension of this term in the course of the debates in committee was urgently needed.
Where sky marshals are concerned, I take a very firm line. I do not believe that the presence on board of armed personnel makes for greater security. The plain and simple fact is that there are circumstances under which that can mean that there is one weapon more available on board for terrorists or for those persons who plan or want to commit terrorist acts.
Let me end, though, on a positive note: the idea of a users’ committee is a very important step in the right direction, and I hope that such committees will have a positive impact on the way measures are further developed."@en1
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