Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-14-Speech-3-241"
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"en.20070314.19.3-241"2
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".
Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, honourable Members, I am delighted to see that the subject of today’s debate is the future of the European aerospace industry, for this industry embodies Europe’s forward-looking approach, its high technology and its potential for future growth, and makes a considerable contribution to achieving the goals of the Lisbon Strategy for growth and employment, with Airbus being its most prominent project. Airbus is the name of a great idea – the idea of bringing together the technical capabilities of several European nations in order to build a strong aerospace enterprise that can hold its own on the global market. The story of Airbus is one of breathtaking success. Its aircraft – 4 600 of them have been delivered to date – represent European high technology on every airport in the world, thus playing a vital part in establishing an identity for Europe.
Airbus does, however, also have serious problems. The year 2006 was one of both success and crisis for it. In that year, Airbus could not only take pride in the success of being the number one on the global market, but the company also suffered a massive crash in earnings as a result of serious delays in the rolling out of the new jumbo jet, the A380, and problems resulting from the weakness of the dollar, since Airbus is built for euros and sold in dollars.
It will also be necessary to reduce the development gap between the A350 XWB and its American competitor. Aircraft building is, after all, on the threshold of a technological revolution, as we move from the age of metal into the age of plastics, and that has been recognised more readily on the other side of the Atlantic than it has on our own. It is that sort of aircraft for which market demand exists.
Airbus now wants to build up its strength; it has to become more competitive and to make itself ready to face the future, a future that can be guaranteed only by constantly renewed effort and the willingness and ability to innovate. Airbus is about to undergo a process of restructuring, and, however much that may be of interest to us in the political world, it is a matter for the company itself to deal with, and Airbus’ management would be well advised to discuss the necessary measures in in-depth dialogue with its workforce, who, after all, are any business’ most important capital asset. While it is, of course, certainly the case that recruiting strong industry partners who can contribute their own capital and know-how, sharing with Airbus both the opportunities and the risks, offers a chance of making jobs more secure, the decision as to whether or not to do that rests with the company itself and with nobody else.
What politicians are for is the creation of framework conditions; it is they who should ensure that there is a fair balance between the European nations involved as regards opportunities and liabilities, as regards jobs and technological capacities, and this fair distribution of opportunities and liabilities among the participating European nations appears to be working well.
Cooperation between several countries has also proven to be a successful way of drawing on the individual partners’ technological know-how in developing and producing competitive products for the world market in the case of other European projects, for example Augusta Westland, Eurofighter and Eurocopter. European cooperation exists not only among the manufacturers of systems, but also among suppliers and manufacturers of jet engines, for example Thales, Diehl, Rolls Royce, MTU, Snecma, Alenia and others, to give but a few examples; all these companies, and those who work for them, are helping Europe’s aerospace industry to cope well with ever-tougher international competition.
Perhaps, as I bring this speech to a close, I might also say something about climate change and compatibility with the environment, which, as I see it, have to do with our society’s capacity for innovation, and Europe’s aerospace industry faced up to the technological challenges associated with them as long ago as the year 2000, when, in ‘Vision 2020’, industry, scientists and policy-makers joined together in defining ambitious targets for a sustainable air transport system, with the intention of reducing, by the year 2020, both specific fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions by 50%, specific sulphur dioxide emission by 80%, and aircraft noise on take-off and landing by half.
These are ambitious objectives, and, if they are to be achieved in little more than a decade, all the interested parties will have to make a joint effort."@en1
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